The Broken Tool
by Jonohex
Summary: Haku is alive, barely, after the battle at the bridge. With his master, Zabuza, dead and a team of vengeful hunter ninja close on his trail can he hope to last long? Haku X female OC. Please read & review, all comments and advice are appreciated.
1. Chapter 1

_Hi, reader, and thanks for dropping by. This story, The Broken Tool is my attempt to flesh out Haku in an action/adventure with a little romance thrown in too. "My" Haku is a little harder-edged than any I've read yet, based on the short montage of him from the anime where he's killing other ninja pretty much at-will with his senbon. Plus, I figured that Zabuza wouldn't be the easiest guy to stay alive around even if he liked you. Other than that, I try to stick fairly close to the manga/anime with a story about Haku trying to deal with the drastic changes in his life while fighting a variety of new challenges, temptations and adversaries._

_I hope you like it._

_--Jonohex._

* * *

**The Broken Tool**

By Jonohex

* * *

**Oh nobly born, that which is called Death being come to you now,  
resolve thus:**

**"Oh, now is the hour of death! By taking advantage of this  
death I will so act for the good of all sentient beings as to obtain the  
Perfect Awakening by resolving on love and compassion toward them  
and by directing my effort to the Sole Perfection."**

-- Bardo Thödol – The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

* * *

**Haku**

Like a leaf trapped amidst the torrents of a raging river, the boy, Haku, rose and plunged in the darkness he found awaiting him in the afterlife.

_Cold…so, so cold!_ the thought boomed as he found himself overwhelmed by the sensation. New shocks of confused terror flooded through him for, without a body, without substance how should he be able to feel anything at all?

Images flashed like lightning across his consciousness – his defeat at the hands of that strange boy, Naruto. How could he ever have guessed that the goofy, yellow-haired, orange-clad genin harbored an almost inconceivable power? He might have died then and there at his hands if the leaf-ninja had the heart to execute the sentence.

The scene shifted abruptly. Haku stood now, proud and resolved -- a willing human shield for his master, his sensei, a man who was dearer to him than his own life. Zabuza's enemy, the leaf-jonin, Kakashi, who stood poised there just in front of him with his hand thrust into Haku's bloody chest, looked into the young ninja's face in shock. For a brief moment, the last moment he would spend in this world, Haku's heart melted at the expression of anguish he saw there in his killer's eyes -- one blue, the other bright red and whirling with tomoe droplets of black, the copy-ninja's famed sharingan.

Shrieks startled him, moans and wailing that informed him that he'd arrived…and of _where_ he'd arrived.

_Did I really expect anything else?_ the fallen ninja lamented, but then his thoughts turned, as they always did, to the man, Zabuza Momochi. Was HE alright? Did he manage to kill Kakashi or the bridge-builder? Failing that, was he able to escape?

Even where Haku found himself, dead and facing an eternity of torment, he couldn't stop worrying about him. If his master had gone on, survived, and maybe was proud of him at last then this would all be worthwhile.

_Please, oh, please…let him be alright!_ he begged existence and could swear he felt tears flow.

* * *

**The Girl**

In the corner of the dank, dim basement, Mari Tezuka hovered over the worktable and the body that lay atop it, with both hands gathered anxiously at her chin. Her uncle Maceo, half again her height and many more times her weight towered next to her.

"Will he make it?" the girl asked in a faint, desperate whisper as she looked up with a plaintive look in her soft, brown eyes. She was fourteen, and so lean from a combination of hard labor and poverty that her stained, well-worn, white coveralls seemed to hang from her shoulders.

Her uncle, tall, dark, bushy-haired and bearded, spat out a caustic laugh. "Of course not!" he growled in his resonant, sand-and-glue, baritone. "He is not alive," the man insisted then pointed emphatically. "This is a dead body, and you ought to return it to wherever you got it from!"

The subject of their conversation lay inertly before them – a boy no older than fifteen, dressed in a knee-length, short-sleeved robe of muted jade green trimmed in tan, worn over a brown, turtle-necked shirt and baggy hakima-style pants. All were rent, scarred and burned from some terrible battle. Strands of his long, black hair fell over a smooth, delicately-featured face that was marred by scratches and bruises. But what _horrified_, and made any who looked at him cringe, was the grizzly, blood-crusted wound that marked the left side of his chest.

"But, Uncle --!"

"'But, Uncle'…nothing!" he barked, his whole body shaking with consternation. "Honestly, child, I'd hoped that all the peculiar notions and interest in the outré rested exclusively with me. It pains me to no end that, out of all the little brats and miscreants this family has vomited upon the world, it's you, the normally well-mannered and industrious one who's proven me wrong!"

"But Uncle," Mari tried again, un-phased by her elder's antagonism. "He moved. I saw him! He's still alive!"

Maceo clicked his tongue as he shook his head. "Dead bodies do that," he explained with professional impatience. "Nerves twitch and fire, muscles relax and contract, gasses expand and equalize. Why, it's not uncommon for a corpse to sit suddenly bolt-upright!"

The two gave the boy a tentative, anxious look for a moment then relaxed as he, thankfully, remained still.

The girl turned away, her brow narrowed in a serious expression. She then crossed her arms and tried to find a spot in her uncle, the artist's, strange domain where she could rest her eyes without distraction. Along one wall towered shelves with strange sculptures of clay and plaster – creepy, human-like figures married with mechanisms, gears and wiring, which, Uncle said, were 'heterotopic'. Stacked up there were paintings that featured clowns, platypuses, hats, bells and various other motifs that figured prominently in Maceo's personal symbolic language. Everywhere else hunkered his collection of old furniture, projects abandoned or 'in-progress', and various other aesthetically appreciable pieces of junk that he said were 'found objects'.

Sudden screams and shouts echoed shrilly from the floor above – the all-too familiar voices of the girl's argumentative brothers, followed by pounding footfalls that made the floorboards creak and the cobweb-draped joists bounce. The dangling bare-bulbs swayed and puffs of dust drifted into the air.

"Hey, up there!" erupted Uncle, who punched the low ceiling hard with his thick fist. "Settle the hell down or I'll crack your asses the other way!"

Mari cringed from his outburst and then again as he turned toward her.

"Why did you bring him here anyway?" he whined, his deep voice surfacing into unfamiliar octaves. "Does that wound look survivable? Does this look like a hospital? Do I look like a doctor?"

"Well," the niece argued half-heartedly, "you were."

"Years ago!" he countered fiercely. "And I am happily retired, thank you! Though I'm honored that you hold such a high opinion of my art that you think I can raise the dead!"

The girl hung her head. "I'm sorry, uncle," she whispered sadly and in a tone so heartfelt that it doused Maceo's anger. "It's just, that he seemed so…"

"Alive," the man finished for her. "Yes, I believe you thought so." He turned toward the boy's body then gripped it by the chin and turned the head left then right. "He was beautiful, that's plain enough," he appraised and expressed a sigh. "What a damn waste. I suppose, from the silly way he's dressed and the obvious injuries he sustained, that he was one of them ninjers."

Maceo canted his head, folded his arms over the shelf of his protruding belly and studied the corpse for awhile deep in thought. "He really is a stunning subject like that; perhaps I should paint him before you take him to the dumpster," he thought out loud. "I'll call it: Rewards for a Youth Misspent."

"Uncle!" Mari objected and swatted his arm.

"No, I'm serious," he said in return, then reached over his subject to snap on a floodlight. His thick, scarred and stained fingers pinched its clamp open then affixed it to the bottom of a joist, positioned just-so to bathe the boy's face half in bright light and half in stark shadow. "Ah," said the artist as he stepped back and framed his composition.

"Uncle!" his niece shouted again in dismay and stamped her foot.

"It's almost perfect, except," Maceo moved forward again to tweak the light's position then stopped suddenly. "What in --?" he began with surprise then leaned closer toward the body. The former doctor's eyes widened as they tracked a teardrop that gathered in the corner of the boy's eye…then trickled slowly down his temple.

* * *

**Gendarmes**

Dawn's light cut through the mist, revealing five figures who stood upon the wide bridge in a half-circle. Four of them wore the voluminous, obscuring black robes and white zodiac masks natural for hunter ninja of the Village Hidden in the Mist. The fifth, a stocky figure, stood at their center with his arms crossed. His gray, black and white camouflage pants were tucked into mud-crusted black boots. Black, thick-framed, thick-lensed glasses rested on his face. His multi-pocketed vest bulged with contents, and had been reinforced and patched with duct tape in places where it had worn or been cut.

"So," said Toru Yamashite introspectively as he chewed, "this is where Momochi and his 'little pal' bought the big one."

The hunter-ninja on the man's right pulled his mask up set it atop his head, revealing a surprisingly mild face. "'Looks that way, Chief," he offered in a tired, nasally voice.

The big man paced forward and scratched his stubbly cheek as his eyes searched out the scars in the new bridge's concrete. There was a patched crater here and there, and a great, sweeping gash that had been filled in and leveled, but the new concrete didn't quite match the original. "Ok," Toru began. "What's the story, 'Masa?"

The first hunter, Yukimasa Sakurai, cleared his throat as he produced a notepad then began his synopsis. "Local engineer named Tazuna hires a leaf-ninja cell comprised of Kakashi the copy-ninja and three genin to protect him from Gato's assassins: that's Zabuza's gang. Here's where it ended up."

"Huh." Toru suppressed a wince that a citizen of the Land of Waves would resort to hiring bodyguards from another ninja village like that, but had to admit it was a smart move. "So the leaf-ninjas killed him?" he asked and turned his head toward his junior.

"No, Chief, it was Gato's own guys," 'Masa clarified. "But he didn't get his money's worth, 'cause Momochi killed Gato first."

The pack-leader barked out a laugh. "What do you know, Zabuza Momochi --public servant!" The ANBU shared the irony and chuckled until Toru fell silent, then said, "It's hard to believe it could be over after all this time. What's it been, like two years already?" He looked around with a sweeping glance. "What's the name of this place anyway?"

"The Great Naruto Bridge," offered Aya Sakamoto's demure voice from behind her stylized 'horse' mask.

"Whoever that is," piped Orimi Hirai more gustily.

'Masa sighed, then explained, knowing how it would be received, "Get this -- it's one of the leaf-genin."

Toru's eyes bugged. "You're sh-ttin' me? PLEASE tell me you're sh-ttin' me!"

"'Serious, Chief," said 'Masa hesitantly. "Yeah, everyone around here was so impressed with the kid that they named the damn bridge after him."

"Hehe, yeah, Chief, you missed your chance," crowed Eiji Tohei, who put up his 'rooster' mask. The teenager's eyes were dark, narrow and fierce. "If we'd gotten here last week it could've been The Great Akita Bridge!"

The hunters laughed.

Toru too chuckled at the mention of one of his many nicknames which he tended to collect because of his peculiarities. That he disdained the traditional cloaks and zodiac masks required by on-duty ANBU hunter-ninja, stating without apologies that it was ridiculously theatrical, was just the beginning. 'Akita' was because of his personality, 'Goggles' because of his glasses, 'Calabash' because of his shape, and 'Fish' because of his breath. Only this last one made him particularly self-conscious and so he'd adopted a habit of chewing anise seeds with a mind toward sweetening his exhalations. He didn't really know if it did any good or not, but it was beside the point because he was now addicted to their licorice taste.

"All right, all right," Toru announced, knowing how ridiculously easy it was to distract his cohorts. "We're getting off track here. 'Masa, where're they now?"

"Buried, up on the high ground," the ninja answered and cocked his head in the direction of the hills beyond.

"Alright," said Toru. "Let's put it to an end. The sooner we process those bodies, the sooner we can get out of this sh-t-hole and move on."

* * *

The tranquil forest clearing afforded a magnificent view of the channel below and the so-called 'Great Naruto Bridge', and was clearly marked. All five hunters stopped dead at the sight of their enemy's massive, distinctive and inimitable sword stuck in the ground to mark his final resting place.

"_Heaven and Earth_," whispered Orimi, who spoke for them all at that moment. Slowly, she removed her 'rat' mask. Her face was thick and rounded but still feminine and quite pretty. "Could he really be dead?"

Toru glanced at her and suppressed a grin. He'd always suspected she harbored a more introspective nature though she tried hard to keep it under wraps. And with Eiji around it was probably a good idea. "I reckon we'll find out in a few minutes," the pack-leader stated. "Are you going to do your thing, Aya, or do we get to _dig_ him up?"

Aya startled then moved forward and started to form hand seals. The ground around the two graves turned dark then water bubbled up. The hunters could feel the vibrations in the ground as it started to liquefy under the pressure of Aya's jutsu. In no time at all, two coffins rose up from the earth as if by magic – pushed by hydrostatic pressure.

Toru signaled his ninjas who surrounded the coffin and prepared themselves for battle, while he himself put his fingers together in a jutsu hand-sign of his own.

With utmost caution Eiji and 'Masa took out pry-bars and dug them into the seam beneath the lid of Zabuza's coffin then, only after everyone had given the 'ready' sign, popped it off.

A man's bloody corpse lay within. It was tall, dark-haired and fearsomely muscular.

All five ANBU gathered around and stared.

"Well," ventured Eiji, "it sure looks like him. Don't you think?"

Toru spat out a troublesome anise-husk. "Thinking we don't need," he stated flatly. "I mean, none of us have ever seen him without his face covered. We need to know. Orimi?"

The kunoichi brought out a shotglass and filled it with clear water from her canteen. She knelt gracefully at the head of the casket and cradled the glass in her hands. After sitting quietly for awhile, with everyone watching and waiting, the water rose slightly – tilting toward the body of Zabuza.

"It's him," said Orimi who looked up at the group.

"Are you sure?" Toru asked with eyebrow raised.

The woman gave him a moderately-offended glance. "Pack-leader Yamashite," she reported firmly, "I am sure."

Toru backed off and raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, you're sure."

"Wow," 'Masa observed. "We usually don't get this lucky."

"That's true enough," agreed Orimi who raised her hand to her cheek as she looked down at the conquered Zabuza. "I wonder why those leaf-ninja didn't take the body."

Their burly chief scowled then blew out a breath as his eyes narrowed. "Maybe all those 'secrets' we hold so dear aren't worth knowing anymore." As wide-eyed looks fell over him, he regretted having said that. His cynicism was well-known, and if anyone didn't like it they had two choices: get used to it, or get out. This time, however, he knew he'd gone too far. "Sorry, team," he offered with contrition and pushed his heavy glasses up to rub the bridge of his nose. "It's been awhile since I've had a break. Maybe they were so wore out from fighting him that they didn't think about it."

"Sure, chief," agreed 'Masa, and rest nodded obligingly.

One after the other, they gathered around the body of their former adversary until they all stood around him in solemn contemplation.

Toru snorted sharply, breaking the mood. "So here it is – the not-so-glorious end of the Demon of the Hidden Mist. After everything he did, all the people he slaughtered, the uprising he lead and his attempted assassination of our Mizukage, after all that, here's what he came to – just another dead sack of sh-t. A year from now, no one will even remember his name." The hunter paced forward, cleared his throat and sinuses noisily then let fly a glob of spit and phlegm that dashed over Zabuza Momochi's lifeless face.

"A moment of silence if you please," said Toru to his pack in a serious tone. "Not for this piece of trash but for all his victims. Remember, there were many."

The team of ninja-hunters fell silent with their heads lowered in thought or prayer. "Ok," said Toru after awhile. "Back on the clock."

Having said that, the man pressed his hands together to form a seal. At once, beads of water began to form on their quarry's corpse until they started to run off his body and soak into his clothes. Vapor then poured off him, rising up in angry, white billows like steam from a kettle. When the senior ANBU had finished, there was nothing left of Zabuza's body but a carpet of dust. Under the desiccating power of the ninja's technique, the bones and even the clothes had been reduced to a grayish powder.

"Bag him," said Toru, but his team was already on it.

Eiji picked up the coffin and shook it smartly until all the remains had collected into one corner then tilted it into a canister that Yukimasa held ready. While 'Masa screwed the lid on tight Eiji set the coffin down, ran his finger along the inside of it then rubbed the residue on his gums, shocking Aya and Orimi.

"What are you doing?" asked 'Masa with his trademarked restraint.

Eiji grinned. "After so long, I just had to try me a taste," he explained. "That's one-hundred percent pure Momochi!"

"Uh, yeah," said Orimi with a clever smile, "and some of the Chief's loogie!"

The young mist-ninja's beady eyes widened then the smile fell from his face. "I forgot."

"All right, all right you slugs," announced Toru as he restored order and made his way toward Haku's casket, "enough fun and games. Let's do the girlfriend."

As before, the hunters all stationed themselves in a circle and got ready while Eiji and 'Masa pried the lid open.

Aya gasped. Eiji yelped in disbelief.

"Well," muttered Toru direly. "That's mighty disappointing." He allowed a few moments for it to sink in with his younger team members that the coffin was indeed empty. "Ok, everyone…your thoughts?"

The jonin tended to ask open-ended questions like that from time to time so that his team wouldn't become complacent or look to him too much for leadership. More than that – he wanted someone to step up and show that they could replace him if necessary.

Yukimasa looked back and forth dumbly between Toru and the empty coffin.

"It's those damn leaf-ninja!" cried Eiji, face flushing with anger. "They took him!"

Orimi shook her head. "Unlikely," she judged. "After all, why would they take Haku and leave the Demon?"

Eiji sputtered as he tried to speak before he knew what to say, but Aya intervened. "Maybe," she young woman began, "the Hidden Leaf Village has some way to mine the secrets of his kekkei-genkai."

Eiji looked at her and nodded vigorously, then turned to Toru and nodded some more. "Yeah!" he piped. "That's GOTTA be it, Chief."

"We could catch up to them," Orimi suggested.

"Hell-to-the-yeah we could catch up to them!" agreed Eiji instantly. "With our mirror-gate jutsu, we could be on 'em like a glove before they even knew it!" He laughed and looked at Toru. "Hey, Chief, 'you take down Copy-Ninja Kakashi and you'll be famous."

Toru coughed and shook his head. "That kind of fame I don't need," he grumbled and rolled his eyes.

"Yukimasa," inquired Orimi. "Is it possible the boy could have survived?"

The shinobi looked back at her, surprised by the idea. "Well, I," he began uncertainly then gathered himself. "I talked to people who saw the body. Haku had a big hole burned into his chest. I don't have an answer for there being no body here, but I don't see how he could have survived."

"Other ideas?" Toru suggested, whereupon the discussions ranged widely from predation by wildlife to body-snatchers to some sort of secret alliance between Haku and the Hidden Leaf Village. None of the hypotheses seemed probable at this point and so the pack-leader brought the matter to a close. "That'll do for now," he said firmly then knelt next to the empty coffin and pointed. "That there looks like a blood stain to me, so I think it's safe to assume that the boy was inside at some point." He looked up and smiled. "I assume we can all agree on what to do next."

All nodded, brought out their canteens and poured them into the coffin. Aya then began to make her hand signs while Toru watched. The water swirled around the coffin then rose up into the air in glistening, silvery streams. They coiled and spiraled around their master, Aya, who raised her delicate hands, lowered them then cast them forth. Like dogs chasing a thrown stick, the water eels flew off toward town in search of their prey.

"With any luck," said Eiji, "we'll have him bagged by lunchtime."

* * *

_Hi, everyone. I hope you like what I've written. I always liked Haku because he was quieter, deeper and more interesting than almost any other character in Naruto. I thought it sucked that he got killed off so quickly, even though it made sense in the story, and I haven't seen any stories here on fanfiction that was the kind of story that I really wanted to read about him._

_Anyway, if you have any comments, parts you like or dislike, please drop me a review. I don't always know what I'm doing, so I need all the help I can get ;)_

_--Jonohex_


	2. Chapter 2

_Hi, welcome back ;). On to chapter 2..._

* * *

**Haku**

For a long time, and he couldn't tell how long or even if time still existed for him where he was, what the boy accepted as reality came and went. There was no past, no future but only a flickering present disconnected from all else.

At this moment Haku found himself sitting on the floor in the cold, familiar comforts of the home he'd grown up in all those years ago – a shabby house of planks and fieldstone amidst a countryside blanketed in snow. He played with his simple toys, wood blocks and rag dolls, while his mother hummed happily and cooked dinner. Father arrived, closed the door to the harsh chill behind him hurriedly then whisked off his coat and stamped his feet. As the boy looked up and smiled at him, without a care in the world and joyous at his return, father smiled too and laughed.

Haku remembered that this was before the revelation of his blood-gift changed everything, and revealed the monsters hidden deep within them both.

_Was it really so long ago?_ the young ninja couldn't help but wonder. _Was there ever a time before I turned my footsteps down that dark road to become a shinobi, a living weapon to live and die in the service of my master? Was there ever a time before that? Was there ever a time before __**him**__?_

Haku startled as he looked once more into his killer's eyes: one blue and wide with surprise, the other red and swirling with black. The moment was seared like a brand into his consciousness, into his very soul. _That face…those eyes,_ the boy trembled, knowing they would be with him forever.

Zabuza saved him then as the boy found himself again at his side, caught up in his sweeping, epic, Kurosawan-in-magnitude struggle to wrest the reigns of power from the Mizukage's tenuous grasp.

How magnificent the Demon of the Hidden Mist was! In this drab and floating land, inundated by and drowning in a sweating, starving sea of weak, clueless, artless, inept and directionless zombies who'd long ago given up living in place of survival, here was someone powerful, cunning, skilled and driven; a man, Zabuza Momochi, who glowed with rage and passion! Crowds parted for him. The lost yearned to follow him. Grown men, trained warriors, feared him and fled in stark terror before him! Where most people in the cursed lands of Wave and Water cowered and crawled, seeking only to perpetuate their miserable existences, Zabuza strode like a god!

Haku stirred with admiration and was filled with a sense of infinite gratitude, for this man, this god, had seen value in him. When all had abandoned him and cast him to scorn to die slowly, by painful degrees, of starvation and exposure to winter's icy clutch, Zabuza raised him up, took him in and gave him a great purpose – to be a weapon at his side.

And that was the way it had been for eight long, magnificent years. Their fortunes rose, fell and rose again like the seas that surrounded their luckless nation…but that wasn't what mattered to Haku. As long as he could share those joys and endure those sorrows alongside his master, he was happy. The Demon of the Hidden Mist was a living sun around which Haku orbited gladly, warmed by his presence and defined by his rays.

_Where did it go so wrong?_

That was a strange point to ponder now that his life had gone, but still it begged an answer.

_Was it when the coup failed? Maybe_, thought Haku.

But even after Zabuza's revolutionaries had been routed his apprentice hadn't been dismayed, not at all. He'd accepted long ago that the inherent risk of big dreams and colossal aspirations was that they could end in colossal failure. His dreams were still intact -- his and his master's. Zabuza was alive and so was he…and so there was hope.

A silly-looking, young leaf-ninja awoke just then, sat up before Haku in the forest, rubbed his bleary, sapphire eyes and looked at him groggily. Twigs and leaves were stuck in his blue headband and disordered thicket of yellow hair, and fell from the back of his rumpled, vivid, orange jacket.

_Did he really sleep out here all night?_ Haku wondered.

Naruto Uzumaki (that's what he said his name was) took him for a girl and really, Haku could hardly blame him. After all, he was wearing a dress and collecting herbs…not quite what you'd expect from a boy.

Haku cursed himself. In retrospect, he should have killed the genin when he'd had the chance. It would have been so easy then.

_What an odd character,_ Haku remembered thinking, though not in a critical way, _with those marks on his cheeks and his orange clothes. Can he really be a ninja?_

Naruto smiled broadly as he explained in an absurd yet charming, gravely tenor that he was training so he could get stronger and become Hokage one day.

_Kill him now! Kill him!_ Haku shouted at his past self, though he knew it was no use. _Why didn't you? Was it just because he seemed nice? Was it that you thought his friendly face belonged to a friendly soul?_

The vision of his former adversary brought him to new depths of misery. He looked down now at Naruto who huddled over the motionless body of his teammate, Sasuke Uchiha. Haku had riddled the stubborn, senseless bastard with so many senbon, that he looked like a pin-cushion.

It struck him as absurd how simple some things seemed in retrospect. If it had been either Naruto OR Sasuke trapped in his Crystal Ice Mirrors, everything would have been fine. All Haku had wanted to do was keep those two occupied long enough for Zabuza to finish his duel with Kakashi and then kill Tazuna as their employer, Gato, wished. Either one of them alone and trapped in his ice prison, pierced all over with senbon, would have given up; but not the two together, NEVER together. They fed off the need to best each other – to prove that they were braver, stronger and could endure more pain than the other.

If only he'd realized that earlier.

Naruto and Sasuke never realized Haku was only stalling. They never wondered how they could continue to live after being struck with so many metal spines. Why would they? How could they imagine that the ninja they were fighting had missed their vital organs and arteries on purpose?

THAT'S where it went wrong. They'd called his bluff.

Haku plummeted even further into despair. _WHY couldn't I kill them?!_ he moaned to himself. _What is a shinobi who can't do such a simple, basic thing? What good is a weapon that can't kill?_

The world he floated in lurched and swayed suddenly then was replaced by a new, even more terrible reality. The devil himself floated over him – a grotesque, bristly monster who inspected him in a rude, rough and humiliating way, then parted his flesh and rummaged through his bared organs. Light flickered and flashed in the dark depths he'd ended up in -- a devil's workshop in the very literal sense!

But then the looming apparition ceased its motions and retired. In his place appeared a vision: a girl in white who glowed in heavenly light – an angel in the midst of hell, who reached out and ministered to him with cool hands filled with kindness.

* * *

**Toru**

Of course, there were much better things the ANBU pack-leader would rather be doing than standing there huddled over a stinking trash dumpster, poking through bloody clothes.

"I hate this job," he mumbled to himself then looked up at Aya whose sweet, youthful face was gloomy with disappointment.

Toru drew out his jutte, a truncheon-like weapon with a hooked flange close to the handle, picked out the relevant articles then laid them on the pavement: a knee-length, short-sleeved robe of muted jade green trimmed in tan; brown, turtle-necked shirt; baggy hakima pants, and wooden geta sandals. Haku's clothing had seen better days; so, probably, Toru assumed, had Haku himself.

"Ya know," the large mist-ninja began loudly but with a philosophical air, "if anyone had told me that somebody other than me would kill Momochi, but I'd spend the rest of my days tracking Haku…I'd have said they was crazy."

Aya remained downcast. "I'm sorry, Toru," she offered then quickly amended, "I mean, uh, Pack-Leader Yamashite."

This drew her leader's grimacing look. "Toru's fine," the man clarified curtly, having explained that many times before, then put his fists on his hips.

From up on the rooftop above Yukimasa looked down at them while Eiji and Orimi stood watch on opposite ends of the littered alleyway. Dressed as they were in their hunter-ninja robes and zodiac masks it was pretty unlikely that anyone would try to push past them and interrupt their leader's investigation.

Toru looked again at Aya. "Ok," he asked casually, "your Stalking Eels Jutsu lead us here but there's no Haku. What does that tell us?" He could feel shame radiate though the young woman's attempt at stoicism.

"Only that there's more blood on the clothes than on the body, um, Toru," she explained in a shy voice.

"See -- that's useful to know," he opined, trying to sound encouraging, with eyes directed upward in thought. The jonin then concluded: "He's healed himself, or else found someone to help him." The big man knelt over the fugitive's clothes and picked them open with the tip of his jutte.

"What 'cha got, Chief?" shouted Eiji, who never could contain his eager curiosity, "anything good?"

Toru stifled a burp with the back of his fist. "'About a thousand senbon," he reported then looked again at Aya. "See this," the man pointed out. "Haku's robe is layered with quivers of throwing spines. That must have been some fight at the bridge. It looks like he threw a couple a couple-a-hundred at least." The ANBU captain's weapon clicked against something and his ragged eyebrows rose. "Oh, what do we have here," he said then smiled. "Clever boy, he was wearing armor!"

"What?" exclaimed Aya in disbelief, then she knelt to take a closer look. "As agile as he was…uh, is."

"'Is'," Toru stated, "is right. He wasn't wearing a full suit, but look at this. It looks he had about an eighth-inch contoured steel plate buckled over his chest. It's got a hole burned right through it too. Man!" he exclaimed, clearly impressed. "Whatever jutsu that Kakashi guy used is pretty kick-ass."

The man rose and held up the ruined armor for his team to see then set it down atop the rest of their quarry's bloody, singed and garbage-stained raiment.

"Alright, team, gather around!" Toru announced then waited a moment for them to assemble. "We'll assume for now, until otherwise indicated, that Haku is alive but wounded. Aya and Orimi – check all hospitals, clinics, doctors' offices and their private homes, vets, and so on. Eiji, search through all these surrounding buildings, basements, crawlspaces and attics. 'Masa, have yourself a little chit-chat with the gravediggers."

The big man hiked his pants and grunted. "Remember," he added, "no heroics, no going it alone. If you find Haku, do NOT try to take him on alone. We succeed as a team." Toru's doughy face started to swivel. "Eiji, I'm looking in your direction!"

The young hunter-ninja pulled off his rooster mask slowly. "Come on, Chief," he plead sardonically, "there ain't no cross-dressing, knob-gobbling, punk-ass kid that can take me."

Toru frowned and his eyes narrowed, then he amended with barely a pause, "Aya, switch with Eiji."

"What!" Eiji erupted, cheeks reddening with anger. "Oh, come on, Toru. I was joking!"

The Pack-Leader dragged a hand over his stubbly cheek then stalked away. "If you can't take what I tell you seriously," he called back and waved his hand in a gesture of contempt, "then you're no use to me!"

"Hey!" the younger ninja continued to protest, "get real! Momochi's dead and all that's left is his little girlfriend. Come on, we're just picking up the scraps here! What are you so bunched up about?!"

Toru spun to face his junior. "Haku IS what I'm 'bunched up' about," he shouted, "even more than Momochi!"

This brought Eiji to a stunned, curious silence, and the others as well.

Toru scowled. "I suppose I should have explained that before," he began begrudgingly. "Yeah, sure, the Demon of the Mist was a lot more likely to kill 'ya than the brat, but there's more to it. Zabuza was dangerous but we already knew what he was capable of. Sure, he almost killed the Mizukage and took over the whole damn country, but you know what," he went on and pointed incisively, "he was never going to surprise us like that again. He shot his wad and the rest was downhill from that point on.

"Think about what he'd been reduced to -- a common thug working for that slug Gato and whacking people for cash. As nasty a piece of work as he was, his day was done long before Kakashi Hatake put him out of everyone's misery." Toru's expression turned thoughtful as he started to pace. Eiji, 'Masa, Orimi and Aya all parted around him to make room.

"Haku's different," the Pack-Leader explained to them. "He's young, like fourteen or fifteen. The bastard hasn't even hit his stride yet! As bad as Momochi was, Haku could be ten times worse! We have no idea what he's capable of. Just think about it a sec', Momochi's been training him for almost ten years now, and he's got that kekkei-genkai that lets him control water and wind." The man paused as he dug into one of his dozens of pockets, came up with a packet of anise seeds then shook some into his mouth.

"Chief," replied Eiji softly. "Haku IS dangerous and I know that. We all do. But he's still only a kid."

Toru shook his head emphatically as he chewed. "He's a lit match that needs to be crushed out; the sooner the better." He froze his pack with a hard look. "The Land of Water is weak…and Kirigakure's practically gutted by our own countless f-ck-ups," he muttered sourly. "I don't mean to sound unpatriotic or anything but it's the truth. We can't take another guy like Momochi was, or who Haku could be, going around breaking sh-t."

Eiji's eyes dropped then closed as he nodded. "It'll never happen. We'll get him, Chief," he vowed. "And I'll be careful."

The Pack-Leader spared him a charitable look. "See that you do," he snarled then smiled. "'Cause, if that cross-dressing, whatever-you-said, plants one on you," Toru reached out and pressed the tip of his thick forefinger into Eiji's forehead just above the bridge of his nose then gave him a hard push, "it won't be a kiss, it'll be a senbon. And, after all the time and trouble I've put into you, I hate the idea of training some other a--hole even stupider that you!"

The young ninja fell back, but chuckled. "Okay," Eiji piped, "okay, I'll be careful."

"Alright then," Toru relented, "original assignments."

"You got it," the hunter-ninjas said then vanished in bursts of speed, all but Orimi who stayed behind to ask: "So, Chief, what are you going to do?"  
"What I'm good at," replied Toru, who mugged a clever look at her. "Drink beer and look stupid." They shared a laugh before the Pack-Leader answered: "I'm going to have me a talk with this Tazuna guy. He's at the center of all of this. And since it looks like we're going to be here for awhile, we'd better get the whole story."

* * *

**Mari**

Mari stood on the basement stairs and rested her lean elbows on the top of the balustrade as she watched her uncle scrub his surgical instruments clean in a basin with near-fanatical energy. Though the few high, narrow, grime-choked windows were tilted open, the air remained thick with the fumes and liquors of anesthetic and antiseptic.

Her eyes drifted back to the boy, who lay pale and still as death on the makeshift operating table, and her heart ached at the sight.

_'There's no way he'll make it',_ Uncle Maceo had informed her and there was little reason to believe otherwise. The girl's breath quickened at the thought that he would die despite all their efforts, and at just how bad she wanted him to live.

_What IS it about him?_ Mari thought furiously. _Heaven and Earth! I actually stole him from the gravedigger!_ she remembered. That was an incredibly strange thing to do, yet it hadn't seemed that way at the time.

The day had started simply enough. She'd been walking home from the fields with her little cart full of tools she needed for her various odd jobs when she saw the wagon up near the top of the hill. Upon it and off to one side was a casket -- a plain, pine box. The sight of yet another burial had made Mari grit her teeth. She'd seen so many die over her short life and it never seemed like they ever died for very good reasons. Taking a breath, she'd approached and looked within, fearing it would again be someone she knew.

The sight of that strange…strange boy had made Mari gasp. She'd been struck by his placid, angelic face, long hair, weird clothes and the hideous wound that stained his chest. How tragic he'd seemed – someone so young and beautiful taken suddenly from life by violence.

Mari's thoughts were still steeped in worry. _It's…kinda weird, don't you think? I mean: you stole a body. Only maniacs and criminals like that do stuff like that…right?_ For a long time her mind struggled for a good rebuttal then, finding none, changed tactics. _Well, you did think he was alive,_ she rationalized. _And he was, though so faintly that even Uncle couldn't tell at first._

Mari knew who he was now. It was all anyone could talk about – the battle at the bridge, and how Zabuza Momochi, the infamous Demon of the Hidden Mist and his follower Haku had died there. More shocking than that by far was that Gato, the horrid plutocrat who'd held the Land of Waves in his cruel grip, had also been killed along with dozens of his thugs.

As awful as some of the grizzly details were, the villagers were overjoyed at the outcome. They praised the courage of the visiting ninja of the Hidden Leaf Village who safeguarded Tazuna and allowed him to complete his bridge, especially some guy named Naruto Uzumaki. They praised Haku for the heroic way he'd given his life to protect his master, and even Zabuza himself for ridding the world of the monstrous Gato. As they described it, this battle had brought the people of Wave Country together like never before, not since Kaiza was alive and long before his humiliation and public execution at the hands of Gato's enforcers.

_Haku,_ Mari considered. _His name is Haku._

Both the oldest and youngest of her brothers knew all about him…or said they did.

Jimon, eighteen, had once reported in his badly-affected, 'world-weary' voice that Haku wasn't just Zabuza's consort, but his concubine; that the two were lovers, and that the boy's ninja training was the only thing that allowed him to survive the intensity of his master's passions and deviant proclivities!

Mari's jaw had dropped at this. At some level, she knew she was still naïve about a great many things, but she also knew that Jimon was capable of dropping more sh-t (verbally-speaking) than a rhinoceros.

Ten-year old Chuuya's account of Haku's exploits was much less sordid though just as hard to listen to. The boy was absolutely enamored of all things ninja, and expounded at great and nauseating length to any question related to them.

According to him, Haku was Zabuza's hand-picked successor – The Demon's Apprentice. In soaring flights of florid hyperbole he described how Haku danced and flowed through armies of his adversaries, killing men and women at will with his weapons and secret ninja techniques. Mist-ninja; rival criminal and revolutionary gangs; bounty-killers and, of course, the dreaded, feared, relentless hunter-ninjas of the Hidden Mist Village's ANBU black-ops all fell before him like wheat before the thresher!

"Mari," her uncle said suddenly, breaking her from her ruminations. "That was marvelous the way you assisted me. I think I forgot to tell you."

The girl looked blankly at his broad back. "Huh?"

"The surgery, the sutures," Maceo reminded her, "really it was a lot less gory than I'd expected because of the blood loss, but you handled it like a champ. I thought for sure you'd faint…or barf. I would have put money on it."

Mari made a face. "I'm not that little anymore, Uncle," she replied indignantly.

"Well that's what I'm saying, girlie," the man said, who stopped then went on. "Sheesh, can't you just take a compliment gracefully when you get one? It can't be that often."

"Uncle!"

"So," he continued, still cleaning, "have you told your mom and dad yet?"

"Huh?" Mari's breath caught in her throat. "What?!"

Uncle turned toward her with a smirk rising on his leathery cheeks. "Oh, I'm sorry, are you back to being a little girl now?"

"No," his niece insisted then admitted somberly: "No, I haven't." She pouted and gave him an earnest look. "Do you think I should? I mean, what should I tell them…the truth?"

Maceo shrugged then let his hands fall back to his sides with a slap. "You'd better tell them something, and soon," he advised. "My dear brother and sister-in-law are very busy, always preoccupied, and your brothers give 'em fits; but for all of that they're not entirely stupid or unobservant. It's conceivable they just might notice that I've turned the basement of their house into an operating room and that there's some kind of strange ninja-boy recovering in it. You definitely need to break it to them before they come on down here and see for themselves."

Mari frowned, deep in thought, somewhat less than delighted at the prospect. "Hey, just a minute, Uncle," she piped suddenly. You're in this too!"

"Oh," he remarked with soft surprise. "Am I? How do you figure?"

"'Cause you're the one who sewed him up!"

"Ah, yes," said Maceo with upraised finger, "but that is easily explained. I took an oath to heal the sick and mend the wounded…so I had no choice. I don't believe you ever took an oath of any kind that compels you to snatch bodies. Or am I mistaken?"

The girl fumed and crossed her arms. It never was any use arguing with her uncle. "Thanks a lot," she offered caustically.

"So back to the subject at hand…"

Mari looked back, hoping forlornly for wisdom. "What should I say?"

"I'm sure you'll think of something," said the man with an air of certainty. "You're plenty smart like that."

Mari gathered herself to gripe but just then a new sound made her startle. It came from the boy, Haku. She stared at him wide-eyed as he began to stir, just slightly. His face contorted stiffly and he gagged then turned away from the bright light that hung over him.

"Ha!" Maceo pealed. "What do you know, he pulled through after all. Mari!" he shouted and snapped his fingers. "Go get water, a damp cloth, and some mash to eat. Go, go, go!" The man turned back to his patient. "Welcome back to the land of the living, kid!"

Mari sped up the stairs and into the kitchen and was immediately brought up short by the sight of her mother who was getting something from the cupboards. The woman was only a little over her height, brown hair, and the same sort of brown eyes that her daughter had.

"Hi, Mom," Mari greeted with the utmost brevity and went to the pot on the stove. It was cast iron and she thought the oatmeal should still be warm from breakfast.

"Mari," asked her mother pointedly. "What's going on?"

The girl froze for a moment. "Mom," she began in a plaintive voice, "I…I kind of --." She broke off. _Just say it, Mari. Just say it,_ she thought. "…brought someone home."

The woman's eyes widened as she looked at her daughter questioningly. "You mean here?" she clarified as if to herself then her face narrowed. "Who?!"

"He was…he's a kid, a boy," Mari stammered defensively. "And he was hurt really bad. He was attacked."

Mother threw up her hands in exasperation. "Oh, honey, that's just so dumb! You brought a stranger back here to our house?!"

"I know and I'm sorry," Mari admitted, almost overcome with emotion. "I just…didn't know what else to do. I thought Uncle could fix him."

"Well y--," her mother started then stopped.

_What?_ Mari thought, knowing her parent was thinking along the same lines. _Take him to the hospital? There is no hospital anymore since it closed down. Find a policeman? There's no police, not even any deputies since Kaiza was murdered._

For the moment her mother abandoned that train of thought and instead crossed her arms. "Is he ok?" she asked quietly.

"He just came-to," the daughter informed her in a single, gushing breath. "Uncle sent me up here for some food and water."

Mother shook her head. She already knew the answer to this question: "Does Dad know?"

Mari looked at her and sucked in her lips. "No," she mumbled guiltily.

"You'll have to tell him," said the woman with a frown. "Jimon got a better job today down by the bridge doing some demolition work. Wait until after he tells Dad, then maybe it'll go better."

"Thanks, Mom." Already Mari felt relieved but knew this wasn't over, not by a long shot.

"Honey, you have a good heart," her mom told her. "I can't yell at you for that. But sometimes you have to listen to your head instead. I guess I don't have to say that you shouldn't get in a habit of bringing strangers home, wounded or not."

"No, Mom."

"Ok, get going," Mrs. Tezuka relented with a reluctant smile. "If Maceo told you to go get something then it's probably important."

Mari hurried back down the stairs, keeping careful hold of her bowl of oatmeal mixed with powdered whey and honey, glass of water and cloth. As she went toward the confused, delirious boy, Uncle gestured for her to stop.

"First things first," Maceo explained to Haku. "When I began treating you, I had twenty instruments. Now I have only nineteen." The wounded ninja looked back at him, apparently not comprehending. "I'm pretty sure that I didn't sew anything up inside you," he continued, "but unless I can find number twenty, then I suppose I'll just have to carve you back open and root around for it." The reluctant surgeon raised his hairy eyebrows. "You get me?"

Haku, dazed and pale, looked at the man's outstretched hand and blinked. With sluggish deliberation he raised his right arm, turned it over and seemed surprised himself that there was a scalpel hidden there.

Maceo made a 'hurry-up' motion with his hand whereupon Haku rolled the knife slowly between his dexterous fingers, transitioning it between and around each, before he handed it over handle-first.

"That's better," Uncle said with a grin then motioned for Mari to come forward.

The girl moved beside Haku and raised the glass to his lips. She was shocked at how clammy his skin felt. The young shinobi drank tentatively at first as if he'd forgotten how. After the water was half-gone, he pushed her hand away and canted his head toward her.

"Za…buza?" croaked Haku in a pleading voice that seemed only barely human.

Mari looked away, not knowing what to say or how to answer. When she looked back, he was still staring in anxious expectation. The girl's jaw tensed, then she closed her eyes and shook her head significantly. The meaning was clear: Zabuza was dead.

Haku's eyes widened, then his whole face twisted in agony as he slumped limply where he lay. Mari's simple gesture had informed him of the end of his world. The wounded boy clutched his hands over his face and, weak as he was, shook with tears.

* * *

_Thanks for reading. Please R+R ;)_


	3. Chapter 3

**Haku**

Haku lay on the table and stared up at the underside of the floorboards and rough-cut joists, watching lazy cobwebs sway in the drafty air.

_Zabuza is dead_, the thought repeated gloomily in his mind, though the recovering ninja still couldn't quite grasp or cope with the full depth of its profundity. _How?_ he wondered. _How could it happen? Was it that leaf-jonin, Kakashi, the same man who killed me?_ A frown creased the pale, young features of his face. _Almost killed me_, he corrected himself then concluded, _of course…how could it be otherwise?_

Horrible feelings of loss welled inside him: he wanted to rage, to scream, to howl his grief, tear his hair, claw his face and rip out his sutures. A sloppy, cathartic expression like that was the least he thought his master deserved, but it wasn't Haku's way. Ninjas didn't cry or gush. They guarded their emotions closely. They reigned in their hearts as hard as they disciplined their bodies, for suffering was a part of life. The only virtuous thing to do was to face up to it with grace, quiet dignity, and resignation to the knowledge that the light that burns twice as bright lasts only half as long. The Demon of the Hidden Mist's life had blazed like a raging bonfire; a conflagration the likes of which had never been seen before in the Land of Water!

Haku smiled sadly until the Tezuka family's shouting distracted him.

Above him on the first floor, separated by only about nine feet of space, some rickety construction and a ratty throw-rug, the man who'd sewn up his wounds, Maceo, the skinny, black-haired girl with the freckles, Mari, her mother, father, and a fair number of the girl's young brothers were having dinner.

Alone in the silence, Haku could hear every word, every breath, chew, fart, and every stamping footfall. These people reveled in noise! The lone ninja heard all about Jimon's new job near the bridge which was cause for cheers, whistles, and light-hearted celebration. But soon afterwards the mood changed as Mari revealed to her family, and incidentally to Haku, a story of how she'd brought home a gravely wounded vagrant – some child who'd been attacked and left for dead in the street. That part didn't go so well.

_Did she really steal my body?_ the shinobi wondered calmly with eyebrow raised, then shook his head disapprovingly. _What a foolish thing to do. You should've allowed me to be buried next to my master as is only fitting. Then we'd be together in the afterlife, maybe, and your mother and father wouldn't be so cross with you._

The teenager harkened closer to the doctor, Maceo, as he rose to Mari's defense, making light of his brother's objections, while the girl's siblings hooted and snickered like a carnival crowd.

_How has it come to this?_ Haku moaned to himself, ignoring the burning itch and pulsing tightness of his recently-sealed wound. _In my death there was something noble, however slight, but now it's all only pain and squalor._ The stricken ninja rolled his eyes at the continuing argument unfolding upstairs. _Well,_ he mused with a grimace, _it shouldn't be for too much longer. Maceo and the girl have only given me a little more time, enough to mourn Zabuza's loss._

A fearful possibility rolled through his mind. _My life will be even shorter and a great deal more difficult if the Mist's hunter-ninja discover I'm alive._

Haku fidgeted gingerly and winced with pain as he felt the stitches tug across his chest. Looking around, he couldn't help but make a face at all the curious artifacts that surrounded him and made him feel as if he'd been locked in at some sort of haunted flea-market. The shinobi's trained eyes quickly picked out any number of things he could employ as deadly weapons: saws, knives and tools of every sort, as well as other salient facts -- the two entrances, one set of stairs that lead up to the floor above, the other outside to an alleyway, or so he presumed. Then there were the windows too, which were a bit narrow for egress but might do in a pinch.

These were all idle thoughts for the most part, brought on by force of habit alone. The last thing he looked at was the bowl of some kind of meal or porridge that Mari had brought for him to eat.

The sight of it made him scowl, for the very idea of eating disgusted him. Food was sustaining, and the very last thing in the world he wanted was to be sustained. Here he lay, he summarized, a miserable failure as a shinobi and as a person, snatched by chance from oblivion or hell by the caprice of some random girl!

A light snapped on and the girl in question, Mari, clearly agitated, tramped down the stairs. Haku shaded his face and looked off.

"Hey," she announced herself brusquely once she'd reached the edge of the thinly-matted worktable that served as his bed. "Uncle told me you won't eat. You need to eat or you won't get your strength back. You could still die."

Haku remained silent. None of this was anything he wanted to talk about.

"Are you listening to me?!" she said louder, then flicked her fingertips against his bandages.

The boy cried out sharply and convulsed, wracked by what felt like a cascade of electric needles that jolted from his wound. Haku's head snapped toward the girl and he looked at her irately, staring as if she were deranged.

"I went through a lot of trouble for you!" Mari scolded him and poked him again in the chest. Thankfully this time it was not on his wound, but he still recoiled reflexively. "I carted you in a wheelbarrow through the high hills and across town then helped my uncle sew you back together like some bloody rag doll. And…and, I just got yelled at like I never got yelled at before and my dumb-ass brothers think this is all the funniest sh-t they've ever heard. Now, before you say, 'well, you shouldn't have bothered,' like I know you're going to, I'll tell you that it's too late! We've already bothered! So guess what, there's more to all of this than just you and what you want, which, right now, I couldn't care less!"

Mari fixed Haku with a rebuttal-defying glare but the young ninja only watched mutely, fascinated by her fury. "I've seen people die around here all the time for the stupidest reasons," she continued, fighting back tears, "like they didn't have any money for food, or they got sick and there's no medicine, or someone killed them for a pocketful of coins. And those people WANTED to live! So don't even think that you're just going to lay there and die and make all of this me and my uncle went through for you be for nothing!

"Oh, yeah," the girl spat, "and don't try and tell me it's part of your 'ninja way' or anything either, Haku; yeah, that's right, I know your name. 'Cause that's bullsh-t too!"

Haku stared at her, mesmerized, as Mari drew herself up, spun on her heel and paced away. "Wait," he rasped just as her foot alighted on the first creaky tread. His soft plea had more effect on her than he would have thought at that moment.

The girl froze then turned, looked at him and frowned. Her expression was softer but not soft. "What?" she muttered simply.

"What happened…there on the bridge?" Haku struggled to say.

Mari paused pensively and sucked in her lips, then found a metal stool, dragged it across the floor closer to where the ninja lay, and sat. "I can't say for sure," she began, with head hung and hands clasped. "I only know what I heard second-hand."

The girl then told him all she knew. Haku listened, and didn't stop or question her until the very end. "Zabuza really cried," he whispered, his expression hollow with disbelief, "for me?"

Mari nodded. "I heard it from Chuuya; he's my little brother. I don't believe everything he says, but I believe that." The girl fell silent for a moment as she tried to put together what she felt she had to say next. "You dying," Mari ventured delicately, "you know, he told me it got to all of them: Zabuza, Tazuna, even those leaf-ninja, especially the one called Naruto."

A creaking on the stairs drew their attention and the two turned to look up at Maceo, who looked down on them from the upstairs door. "Everything ok?" he inquired.

"Yes, Uncle," answered Mari quickly as she sat up then shot to her feet. "I'm coming up now." She looked back at Haku with a concerned expression. "Do you need anything?"

"No," he replied weakly and his grey eyes rose to meet hers, "thank you."

A smile lit Mari's face as she turned then softly made her way upstairs.

Haku watched her go then settled back.

The bowl that Mari had brought him earlier sat nearby. Though it disgusted him before, now its presence seemed to accuse. He looked back at it as if to face it down, then turned away. At last he reached out, took it in hand and began to eat.

* * *

**Toru**

With hands in pockets the ANBU pack-leader wandered, taking his time as he made his way through the depressing streets toward where 'Masa told him Tazuna the engineer lived. As he did so, he took stock of his current crew of hunters – a pretty good lot, all things considered. He'd worked hard putting and keeping them together, and keeping them alive for so long.

Orimi Hirai had been a real find, a woman with well-rounded skills, stable personality and a genuine feel for the game. Considering her clan, none of this was at all surprising. Other pack-leaders had overlooked her due mainly to a conceit that the most important quality that marked a good ninja was the rapidity with which they could kill lots and lots of people. That wasn't Orimi's favored approach unless there was some obvious benefit. Not that she was above breaking eggs to make an omelet, (and Toru winced at the figure of speech) but for her, at the end of the day, 'breaking eggs' was not an end in itself.

Yukimasa Sakurai was just about the same way. But what he lacked at times in tenacity, he made up for with his penchant for order, details and records. His skills with weaponry, nin and tai jutsus were solid enough, but mentally he was a natural bureaucrat. Being that the Hidden Mist Village had its own regiment of bean-counters who actually wanted to know from time to time where Toru's team had been, what they'd done, what they'd accomplished, what their expenses were and how they might be justified, having 'Masa around had proved to be a godsend. He saved everyone else from having to deal with what they regarded as inane and boring nonsense, and could pull from his notebooks facts, dates, times and places that everyone else had long forgotten.

Eiji Tohei, on the other hand, was an ass-kicker, plain and simple – a young man only four years out of the Mist's Martial School who'd seemed at first to be a remnant of the bad old days when aspiring genin had to kill their opponents, their own fellow classmates, in order to graduate.

Toru paused, having had to do that himself. At the time, he'd been way too young to realize what a sick and senseless thing it was that he'd been compelled to do. It wouldn't be until years later that he understood what that right of passage laid bare about the Hidden Mist Village…and learned that just because something has been established as orthodoxy doesn't make it right. Out of all the people he'd killed over the course of his long career that one was the only one he still regretted.

All that had been well before Zabuza Momochi's infamous, yet at the same time (in many circles) celebrated, massacre of his entire class during one such final examination. It was that act that had earned Momochi the moniker 'The Demon of the Hidden Mist' and prompted a reformation of the Martial School's graduation requirements.

At first Toru had thought that Eiji was just like Zabuza but was relieved later when he learned that the teenager was rooted at heart by a basic decency despite an otherwise combative nature. If you ordered him to, he would kill. If you got him mad enough, he would kill. But he would never slaughter dozens merely to advance his goals and prove a point as the Demon of the Hidden Mist had done. That in itself was not going to earn Eiji an award in Toru's heart but the big man felt it was at least a place to start.

Lastly was Aya Sakamoto. She was the youngest of the group and by far the most gentle. Aya was so shy, timid and retiring that Toru knew the moment he met her that she wouldn't make it past the genin graduation exams, which were still grueling. Toru also knew that the kunoichi, a promising medical-nin, was jam-packed with potential and had some incredibly useful jutsus, so he'd used (abused, actually) his authority in the ANBU to promote her despite her shortcomings.

By then, bending, breaking and outright reconfiguring the rules in ways even M.C. Escher could not envision had become something of a habit. But Aya had proved to be an asset to his team time and time again and so, in Toru's mind, the end had justified the means.

Toru continued down the ramshackle streets where vagrants slept in the doorways of shops closed long ago or sat sullenly against their walls.

_Everywhere I go in the Lands of Waves and Water, it's the same thing_, he pondered sullenly. _I track down and kill renegade ninjas but really who can blame them for not wanting to be a part of this? Take a good look, Toru, there's no law here, no hope and no future._

_All that crap they fed you about how important it is to be strong; what do they know? Any idiot can kill somebody, but doing a job well – that takes real strength, so does making a living or raising a family._

The big man's eyes narrowed. _Momochi,_ he thought then laughed bitterly. _As much as I hated him, as a Mizukage, he wouldn't have been any worse than the one we got._ Toru continued his trek, teeth clenched. _Before you came along I could at least pretend though…I could make believe that things weren't as bad as they seemed._

_For so long the way of the Village Hidden in the Mist was to make its ninja so strong and bloodthirsty that no one would dare attack us. Then you had to go on and make your little point: that if you were the strongest and blood-thirstiest of the bunch, then you should be in charge. It's hard to fight logic like that._

_Hundreds joined you…and, hell, why not? We'd weaned them on the idea that a sword-wielding maniac was exactly the kind of person they should aspire to be._

"All of us together, our Mizukage, Momochi and me ain't worth a hill of sh-t," he muttered darkly under his breath. _Look what all we've done with our lives has amounted to,_ he mourned as he cast his glance again at the forlorn streets. _There's no law anywhere except 'survive if you can'. Just look at what we've done._

_We all have a share in the blame, but you, Momochi, you were the worst. You and your little butt-buddy Haku were the first scavengers to pick at the body and expose the maggots and all the rotten meat. I can only despise you for that._

The ANBU pack-leader's mind flashed with more recent events: an empty coffin, bloodstained clothes, then the whirling memory of a slender figure in jade-colored robes, long black hair and a white ANBU zodiac mask. Senbon gleamed like silver claws between each finger of the boy's porcelain, delicate-looking hands.

_So you're still kickin', ey, Haku?_ thought Toru grimly._ Good, I hope you enjoy your time. 'Cause the whole Land of Water's dying and I'll be damned if I let you live after the part you played killing it!_

The mist-jonin continued on his way, passing through an even more wretched part of town where some of the buildings had caved in from neglect. Trees grew up through bared roof-rafters and stuck their branches out though jagged-edged gaps in crumbled walls or broken windows. Grass grew through the floors where people once lived and sprouted up in the cracked streets and sidewalks.

Toru had ceased to be affected by such sights, having long since gotten used to them back home – it was simply what an empire in decay looked like. But as he drew close to the bridge, however, the Great _Naruto_ Bridge, he couldn't help but remember, the man was brought up short by an unexpected sight: a traffic jam!

The older buildings, worn down by weather and carelessness fell away, replaced by construction sites where metal monsters dueled to see which could knock down or haul away the most wreckage. Back-hoes dug deep trenches. Long convoys of trucks, flatbeds and concrete-mixers smoked with slow impatience on their way to dusty landscapes that bloomed with wooden stakes, strings and color-coded markers. Dump trucks piled high with the debris of the old roared away and crossed back over the bridge. Everywhere engines idled and strained, shovels scraped and hammers clattered in arrhythmic dissonance; sirens wailed and voices shouted.

As the lonely sidewalk he walked along disappeared into rubble, Toru stared stupidly, struck by the chaos. He'd never seen anything like THIS before.

A crowd of workmen in dusty jackets and hardhats pushed their way past him, too occupied to see his headband and realize they should probably give him a wide berth. Toru snagged one of them by the shoulder. The man flinched at first, realized who it was, panicked, then bowed profusely.

"Never mind all that," Toru demanded then waved his beefy palm in an encompassing arc. "What is all this?"

The workman's scarred face grinned. "Lot's going on, boss!" he shouted to be heard over the 'beep-beep-beep' of a loader backing up.

"I can see that!" Toru shouted back. "But what is it?!"

"A marketplace over there!" he answered and pointed. "Warehouses way down there, a plaza here and a hostel where visitors can stay!"

The Pack-Leader shook his head, deeply perplexed. "How…?" he trailed off, not knowing how to ask what he wanted to, "how did this happen?"

The man shrugged. "It was all in the works, I guess. People were just waiting for Gato to die and his gang to break up."

Toru let his grip slacken and let the man go. As the Pack-Leader made his way across, dodging machinery and veering to stay out of peoples' ways, the ninja found the whole scene a bit unsettling – the frantic energy, such a hive of communal purpose. Where it lead and what it would create, he had no idea. He was traveling through the point where the world he was familiar with was literally vanishing, no, transforming right before his eyes. But transforming into…what?

Toru wandered dumbstruck until the sound of screams and shattering glass cut through even the din of this place and brought him back to his senses.

Up ahead, a gang of armed men picked at an overturned truck, having killed or scared off its guards. Some of them struggled with their prize – a cache of solid copper electrical busbars that were, undoubtedly, worth a small fortune.

Toru paced toward them purposefully, walking over or around bodies that had been slashed with swords and riddled with shuriken.

"Whoa!" cried one of the thieves, loud enough so that all would hear. "Look at this," he caterwauled mockingly, "a gen-u-wine mist-ninja!" The man, a creature of unkempt hair and bandages, pointed at him and raised an axe. "This isn't any of your business, ya' bastard!"

The Pack-Leader looked at him doubtfully as the other bandits came forward to confront him. "Normally, it wouldn't be," the big ninja pretended to agree. "But when you make all this noise and start stealing and killing people in bright, broad daylight, right in front of me…well, that flat pisses me off."

The bandaged bandit chief laughed then explained, "you're going to be a pissed-off corpse if ya' don't find someplace else to be."

Toru shrugged carelessly. "'That right?"

A woman wearing yesteryear's army-surplus leaped out from the bandits' ranks and flung a flight of shuriken at him with some flying straight and some at treacherous, hooking arcs, but Toru batted them all out of the air with careless waves of his hand. "Please," he groaned contemptuously. "What do you take me for?"

The woman crossed her arms and adjusted where her do-rag sat over a somewhat bulbous brow. "Ninja, huh?" she snarled the obvious. "You don't scare us, does he, Wei?"

Another figure emerged from the armed crowd, a tall man with skin the color of ashes. "Yuri and me used to work for the Mizukage too," he explained caustically, "but we're in business for ourselves now!"

Toru could sense the rising tension as the bandits geared up for an attack. "You're making a big mistake," he warned in a lugubrious, lyrical tone, but knew they wouldn't heed it.

The tall bandit pressed his hands together, making seals in succession. When they parted, his long-fingers gripped balls of flame. He then whirled his arms like an enraged cricket-bowler as he flung them at Toru, while the woman, Yuri, cast volleys of shuriken. While they were in flight, she made her hand seals and cried: "Shuriken Hailstorm Jutsu!" at which the dozen missiles she'd thrown multiplied exponentially into hundreds!

Toru shook his head. _Everybody's got to be a tough guy,_ he considered, then made hand seals of his own. "Ninja art," he began quietly, "Mist Labyrinth." At once a cloud of swirling vapor arose and encircled him. He took two slow steps backward into its enveloping embrace, followed almost instantly by Wei's fireballs and Yuri's throwing stars, but all vanished silently into the fog.

The two bandit ninja leaped forward followed, with some hesitation, by the rest of the gang.

"Big deal," Yuri opined, completely unimpressed.

Wei nodded vigorously. "Yeah, no kidding," he added with a chuckle. "I mean, ooooo, so scary, right – a mist-ninja using a mist jutsu to hide in; how lame is that?!"

Emboldened by his two cohorts, the bandaged leader came forward and motioned for the rest of his gang to surround the island of fog. "Knock-knock," he offered with loud, cocky confidence, but just then the mist swelled suddenly. Vaporous arms billowed forth, surrounding THEM at first, then expanded to swallow them up.

Cries of alarm went out: "I can't see!"; "What is this?"; "Where is he?!"

_Bunch of idiots_, Toru thought and waited patiently as his adversaries' struggles yielded to panic and chaos.

The tall one, Wei, started to chuck fireballs randomly in every direction, not realizing he was decimating his own teammates. Yuri, likewise, responded with volleys of shuriken and made matters even worse.

The ANBU pack-leader stifled a yawn and took a deep, calming breath of the misty air. _They'll probably keep at it for awhile,_ he assumed from past experience, _until my jutsu has completely drained their chakra._

The bandit leader, Toru noticed, had a decent idea – he was trying to escape by running away as fast as he could. _It won't do him any good, though,_ the ANBU knew. _He can run all day if he wants to, but my labyrinth will lead him in circles. Soon they'll all be dead or too tired to fight. 'Seems a shame, in a way, _he considered with some regret.

A scene flashed in his mind of the Demon of the Hidden Mist wearing himself out as a prisoner of this jutsu while Toru's pack of expert and well-practiced hunters slowly picked him apart. Even Haku's secret jutsu, the Crystal Ice Mirrors, would be no use. He would have to throw his senbon blindly; his energies taxed by both the demands of his kekkei-genkai as well as the mist's. He could not keep that up for long. That had been the plan, anyway.

_'Back on the clock,_ Toru thought as he took out his jutte. Wandering leisurely though the obscuring cloud, he smashed down those few bandits who remained. His quiet footsteps took him past Yuri who lay on the ground, near to death. Her partner, Wei, had caught her in the chest with one of his wild fireballs.

Toru clicked his tongue. "Ah, well," he offered her half-heartedly in her final agonized moments, "that's the wages of sin…tough break."

Toru found Wei huddled over and despairing. The Mist Labyrinth had that effect on some of those with a claustrophobic nature. "I'll bet being a bandit doesn't seem like such a good idea anymore, huh?" Toru suggested, at which the startled, terrified man looked around with madness in his eyes and lashed out.

The Pack-Leader's spinning leg-sweep blasted through Wei's ankles and he crashed to the ground in a heap. Toru followed up with a downward blow to the prone bandit's lower abdomen – his 'hara,' the center of his chakra. If Wei survived the extensive internal injuries, he would never be able to use jutsu again.

Lastly, Toru came upon the unnamed bandit leader who wandered around not quite knowing what to do. A stomp behind his calf broke the lost criminal's balance and dropped him to his knees.

"No…no!" the bandaged man wailed, "don't!" but Toru pivoted sharply and brought his elbow, backed by his considerable weight and all the rotational force he could muster, down onto the crown of the criminal's head, crushing it in a wave that cascaded down the man's spinal column through his hips and down into his legs.

Gradually the mist cleared, revealing the stocky, solitary figure of Toru who strode unhurriedly from it – the only one alive amidst all the bodies.

* * *

**The Kid**

Inari stood on the ladder, balanced carefully as he reached out with paintbrush in hand to make another white stroke on the weathered walls of his house. _Up and down_, he remembered his grandfather's instructions, _not side to side…nice even coat, take your time and don't drip!_

The little boy, lean and black-haired, grinned in appreciation of what he'd accomplished but then groaned as he considered how much left there was to do. Looking to his left, the wood-sided walls were so white from his coat of fresh paint that they seemed to glow! He took off his floppy, blue-striped, white hat, wiped his brow and grinned. Painting a house wasn't supposed to be fun, and it hadn't been when he'd started. But since then he'd been overtaken by a strange sense of satisfaction which was amplified even more by the way people greeted and encouraged him when they passed by.

Inari looked out over the sea and the dappled patterns of sunlight that reflected in its rippling waves. How different things were now since they finished his grandfather's bridge. How differently people treated him since he'd rallied them to stand up against Gato's gang of thugs and criminals! The boy's lip trembled as he thought again of his amazing friend, the leaf-ninja Naruto Uzumaki, who'd shown him how to reach the courage he had within him. Inari wished he could see him again and tell him how great things were going.

"Hey, little-man," a gruff voice he didn't recognize called out suddenly and broke his mood.

Inari looked back and nearly goggled at the sight of the fat mist-ninja who waited there with a forced, awkward smile on his round, scraggily face.

"Is Tazuna around?" the visitor asked. "I need to talk to him."

"No!" the boy barked sharply then went back to painting.

There was a brief moment where Inari thought he'd made him go away but then the stranger persisted: "It's kind of important, son, so if --."

"He's not here!" Inari insisted in a strident tone.

What right did a mist-ninja have to come around here anyway after everything that happened not two weeks ago! _Well_, the boy's thoughts simmered, _if this guy thinks he can just come around here and boss everyone around…he's got another thing coming!_ He snuck a look at the man, who'd turned his attention to the open windows and could probably see his mom and grandfather moving around inside. _Just look at this slob!_ he thought. _No wonder they couldn't catch Zabuza…_

"Just the same, kid," the newcomer ventured, this time coldly, "I think I'll just knock anyway," he said and paced toward the door.

Inari abandoned his work, leaped down from the ladder and headed him off, glaring fiercely and wielding his paint brush like a samurai sword. "I told you, he's not here!" he snarled. "Go away!"

The disheveled ninja paused, momentarily at a loss. "Look, kid," the man growled down at the boy and pushed his heavy, black-framed glasses up on his nose, "this is going to happen one way or the other, so…" he trailed off as the door opened and grandfather stepped out.

The thick-set, grey-bearded and spectacled Tazuna looked at Toru and frowned then gave his grandson a glance. "That's enough, Inari," he grumbled. "Better get back to work."

Inari leveled a dirty look at their unwelcome guest then stomped away, thwarted but unbowed.

"Cute kid," the ninja offered flatly, "real firecracker."

"Never mind that, just get to the point," said the older man, who sized him up with naked disgust then made a sucking sound with his teeth.

"My name is Toru Yamashite," Inari overheard the ponderous ninja say. "I'm with the Hidden Mist Village's ANBU corps and I'm here to retrieve the remains of Zabuza Momochi and his follower, Haku. I also need to get some of the details of what happened."

Inari giggled when Tazuna hummed thoughtfully and crossed his arms, knowing that this Toru weasel was about to get an earful.

"Well, isn't…that…something?" the engineer began. "Our village is GRIPPED by poverty, GOUGED by Gato's embargo, and living in FEAR of his gang of criminals." His voice crested sharply as he barked hot anger into the ninja's face, "I have to dodge that bastard's assassins and thugs who threatened me, my family, my construction crews, and even MURDERED a man, a good man, in public!"

Tazuna stepped back, turned, ran a hand through his hair then quickly regrouped and came at his unwelcome visitor again with renewed vigor. "I have to hire a damn ninja team from the Hidden LEAF Village just to get home in one piece. Then they all battle it out on MY bridge: Zabuza, Haku, Gato and his creeps, along with my bodyguards, Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura. Oh! It was thrilling! You shoulda been there!"

Again the old man paused then paced back and forth while he looked the intruder over. "Heh! And when the _fat arm of the law_ finally does come to call, what does it want – to pick up the bodies!"

Inari cringed but still enjoyed every second while the mist-ninja endured his grandfather's tirade. _Hehehe,_ he chuckled to himself, _'fat arm of the law'…that's a good one!_

Finally, Tazuna glared into Toru's thick-glass-protected eyeballs. "You're ridiculous -- you AND your Mizukage," he declared and waved his hand contemptuously. "To hell with all of you. Why don't you get your ass back to Water Country and leave us the hell alone."

The big, walrus-like man seemed to take it all in stride. "Well, Mr. Tazuna," he replied in a measured tone as he used his pinkie finger to swab his ear, "we all have our little problems." Toru turned then looked out toward the sea.

"Yeah, right!" Grandfather laughed. "Right now mine is that I hate ninjas and they keep showing up at my damn doorstep. Yours is that you're late, fat, your breath stinks and you need leaf-ninjas to do your job for 'ya!"

Inari held his breath as he wondered if maybe his grandfather had gone too far. This Toru guy looked like a bucket full of fish-guts but he _was_ a ninja and that had to mean something, didn't it?

Their visitor from Kirigakure shut his eyes then turned back to Tazuna with a grin. "They only did half the job, Mr. Tazuna," he corrected smoothly. "'Cause Haku's still alive."

The old man's eyes went wide. "What?!" he gasped. "But…but, that's impossible! He's dead for sure. I saw him die!"

Inari too froze and his mouth fell open. _Haku,_ he remembered then quaked with a hatred it was way too soon to forget. _He was Zabuza's apprentice and part of the gang Gato hired to kill grandfather! Is he really still out there somewhere?_

"So you see," Toru continued and shrugged, "it seems like I have some unfinished business here to clean up after all. So why don't you tell me _all_ about those leaf-ninjas, Zabuza, Haku, and everything else that happened around here? That way, I might be able to do what I need to do and move on." The jonin then fell alongside Tazuna, patted his shoulder with a ham-hand then put his heavy arm around him in an overly familiar, fraternal way. "Otherwise my crew and I will have to stay around here for awhile." The big man smiled and hugged him close, canting his head so that they were almost nose-to-nose, then gave him a smile that was ten-percent friendly and ninety-percent crocodile. "And I know you don't want that, right?"

* * *

_Hi, everybody. What do you think? How am I doing so far? – Jonohex._


	4. Chapter 4

**Mari**

As the early morning broke the way it typically did, with her family's small, crowded house stirring to life, Mari Tezuka's eyes drifted open to greet the day.

"Shit," she spat tiredly then rubbed her bleary-eyed face.

The girl crawled out from under her sheet, then rose from her sagging, worn and saddle-backed mattress to again confront her tiny room – uneven board-faced walls and a claustrophobically low ceiling. A salvaged rug covered the planked floor.

Moving to her half of the window (the other half was behind the wall her dad had thrown up to divide her room from her brothers'), she looked out to see if the weather would spare her from another day of tedious labor. As was almost always the case, the heavens were uncooperative.

Mari ran a hand through her black hair, groaned dramatically and turned away from the demanding sunrise in disgust then rushed to replace her nightclothes with coveralls and boots.

"Ouch," she hissed as her elbow accidentally banged the ramshackle wall and made it shake.

"Cut it OUT, Mari!" her brother, Chuuya's young, incredibly shrill and piercing voice screeched immediately from the other side.

With her temper tweaked, the girl balled her fists. "YOU cut it out!" she roared back furiously. "You know I didn't mean it!"

Moments like this made her glad beyond belief that her status as the lone female in the house, besides Mom, granted her the privileges of a private room while all the sundry males had to share. It made it almost worthwhile that she was always so vastly outnumbered.

Knowing she had to hurry if she was going to get anything to eat at all, Mari headed for the door, which was nothing more than a sheet of plywood that had been ripped down and screwed to some hinges.

As she laid her hand on the handle, she caught a glimpse of one of her Uncle's paintings, which hung crooked on bent nails, and brought her to a halt. It was only a landscape of a village at night yet she always felt captivated by the textured hues of its star-speckled sky and all the little bright lights that glowed in the windows. It exuded a sense of calm and cool, like it never was around here, and conjured in it's brushstrokes a world of perfect peace. The sight of it soothed her and brought to her face a philosophical smile, as if it were a real place she could visit one day if she were patient and traveled far enough.

Her Uncle Maceo was kind of strange, Mari paused to consider. And she found most of his creations puzzling at best and a little frightening at worst. But every now and again the old man created things with the sorts of transcendent qualities she thought were truly breathtaking.

Stayed this long from her schedule, she lingered and took a sidelong glance toward the mirror that sat atop her badly-painted dresser. The girl cringed miserably at the sight of herself. Working outside like she did for long hours, along with her practical clothes and subsistence diet made her look sinewy and boyish. She searched her reflection desperately for anything, anything at all, a careful observer might accept as femininity but soon gave up in frustration.

She startled then at the thundering of hard-soled footsteps that galloped past her door as her army of brothers, Jimon, Aito, Ryuunosuke, Gengo and Chuuya all stampeded to the kitchen.

_Damn it,_ she thought and scowled, _too late!_

Mari shut her eyes, close to tears now but determined not to succumb to disproportionate emotion and all the unrelated questions it always raised about the unfairness of life.

A part of her knew very well that such questions were irrelevant in a land where many wanted for food and shelter, and the streets were crowded with orphans, mendicants and criminals. As things stood in this cursed place, she had more advantages that most; and more, probably, than she deserved.

Assailed by gloom, she emerged from her room, paced down a short, narrow hallway lined with doors, and into the crowded kitchen which was a whirl of bobbing, black-haired heads, frantic expressions, sharp elbows and straining voices. Her Mother, an oasis of zen-like calm amidst the storm, ladled out bowls of meal and glasses of milk or water. Dad had gone to work much earlier, having risen long before sunrise to go out with the fishing boats.

"Good morning, sweetheart," Mom greeted Mari without looking.

It always amazed the lone daughter how she could notice her arrival over the melee every morning like that and still manage to be cheerful.

Mari grunted noncommittally. "'Morning," she mumbled as was per usual, kneed and elbowed her way toward her to receive her rations, then wolfed down her breakfast standing up. The small table was already over-occupied by her brothers plus the babies, Fumio and Fushashi, who were Mom's sister Makiko's, and were 'visiting' indefinitely for some reason.

In a flash, the four oldest, Jimon, Aito, Gengo and Ryuunoske all finished their breakfasts then rose as one with great urgency and bolted. Mom stopped them with a word then made them all return, kiss her cheek and promise to be safe before she allowed them on their way.

With the kitchen much quieter now after their unexpected departures, and relatively empty but for Mom, Chuuya and the two always-astonished-looking infants, Mari sat down at the table. There wasn't much point anymore. She had only a couple of spoonfuls left, but still it seemed a shame to waste the opportunity.

"Where'd they all run off to?" the girl asked as she traded gestures and happy faces with the babies.

Mom scooped up the bowls the boys had left behind and carried them to the sink. "Down by the bridge," she said with a begrudging acceptance that seemed vaguely ominous somehow. "They've all taken jobs working on the new construction."

Her daughter swallowed her last bite slowly as she gauged her parent's tone. "Isn't that good?"

The woman shrugged. "I suppose so, it's not like we don't need the money," she offered worriedly. "But I still don't like it. It's dangerous work and there're a lot of bad people in that part of town too."

Mari nodded and gulped down her water, then was taken aback as she noticed Chuuya stare up at her from his meal then quickly look away. "Don't worry, Mom," she offered. "I mean there are four of them…they'll look after each other."

Her Mother nodded. "You're right, honey," she acknowledged readily. "I just wish your brothers were…I don't know, more thoughtful…had more common sense. I don't know." One of the babies, Fumio, Mari thought, made a burbling sound which drew the woman at once to tend to him. "You know, Mari, there's a lot of places in this world where kids your age and theirs' don't work at all. They go to school. I wish it was like that here."

Mari nodded_. I guess everyone wishes for something_.

Again Chuuya glanced at her.

_Ugh,_ Mari thought, now even more severely annoyed. _He's up to something…again_. The girl's eyes narrowed in aggravation as she stared at him coolly, intent now on catching him in the act.

Her younger brother looked nothing like her, being short, slightly pudgy, with flat black hair, and with a big head that was almost completely round in shape like a bowling ball.

When the boy looked at her again, Mari bugged her eyes and jerked forward as if she was going to come over the table and choke him, which she'd done often enough. Chuuya flinched and startled, grinned cockily as if it hadn't bothered him, then went back to quietly finishing his breakfast.

_Little weirdo,_ Mari considered sourly and breathed a disgruntled sigh. _There's just no way he's related to me._

Though she still had another hour or so before she was supposed to help their neighbor, Ando-san, strip and repaint his boat, Mari felt compelled to go. The girl rose, kissed her mother goodbye, exchanged threatening glances with Chuuya then made her way toward the door.

Her footsteps carried her into the small common room, passing by the door to the basement as she went. A long breath escaped her as she slowed then gradually stopped.

_Don't turn around,_ Mari thought. _Just don't, you've got stuff to do_. But her mind was drawn down into the basement and the strange, wounded boy recuperating there.

_Haku…even his name's weird._ Her dark eyes rolled as she frowned and canted her head to the side. _Just what is it about him anyway, his looks?_ The question made her even more aggravated with herself for the way this strange stranger occupied her thoughts. _Hardly!_ she answered herself firmly,_ with that hair and face, he looks like a girl!_ A moment passed. _And even HE'S prettier than me_, she added darkly.

_His personality?_ she went on as she crossed her arms._ Oh, yeah, right, he hardly has two words to say to anyone. Plus, he's like an international fugitive too!_

_Being a ninja, and hanging out with Zabuza freakin' Momochi...what kind of life is that? He's got to be crazy or something!_

Despite her train of thought and fighting every inclination, she spun toward the basement door, then turned away, then turned back again. _Still…_

Mari cursed herself every step of the way, feeling like a hooked fish, as she went to the door and opened it, then paced down the stairs. _A quick visit, and that's it,_ Mari commanded herself sternly,_ just to see how he's doing._

The unexpected sight that awaited her froze her in mid-stride. She fell back wide-eyed against the wall with her hands clutched close to her chin, then split the air with a sharp cry!

Uncle Maceo startled and grimaced at her in alarm from where he stood behind the seated Haku, with scissors poised to shear off a ribbon of the boy's lustrous, long hair close to the scalp. Haku's features rose into a calm, questioning expression while Maceo's eyes went wide and his face reddened apoplectically.

"Girl!" Maceo bellowed angrily as he waved his arm at her, "what was THAT for!?"

Mari raced down the rest of the stairs then drew up to him, grabbed his thick wrist and disarmed him of the scissors. "What do you think you're doing?!" she piped disparagingly.

Her Uncle stepped back and sputtered. "What do you mean?" he protested as he put his hands on his hips. "What does it look like I'm doing?! I'm going to give him a haircut."

The girl looked at him, and Maceo frowned as he read the expression.

"Hey!" her Uncle growled and pointed proudly into his chest, "I'm a doctor; I'm an artist! But you're going to stand there and suggest that I'm unqualified to cut hair?"

Mari's raised eyebrow was answer enough.

The older man cussed incoherently in reply then, after he'd gathered himself, barked out: "Fine! Since you're the expert, you do it!"

He then paced off, pounded up the stairs and was gone.

Silence descended as Mari turned back to Haku whose delicately-featured face seemed pensive.

"It was my idea, I'm afraid," the wounded ninja confessed quietly. Dressed in the taller Jimon's cast off clothes, he seemed more like a vagabond than the fearsome Demon of the Hidden Mist's apprentice. Beneath the baggy, soft, grey fabric, Mari could see the fresh white bandages over one side of his chest.

"What was?" she asked distantly.

"A haircut," Haku explained, twiddling his fingers idly. "It is what those fleeing justice do, isn't it – change the way they appear?"

Mari nodded then smiled smartly as she brought up one of her Uncle's sculptures: a hideous, anthropomorphic creature with doorknob eyes, and rusty bolts, nails and wire for hair. "This can't be what you had in mind though, right?"

The boy's dark eyes rose. "No…I suppose not," he said, paused for breath, then asked: "would you mind?"

The girl blinked. "Sure," she replied blandly and forced an indifferent shrug.

It took her a few minutes of rummaging for her to find a brush and comb then, taking her place behind Haku, Mari held up a length of his hair. "Wow," she said more jealously than she'd intended as she ran her fingers down it, "your hair's really nice, like silk."

"Thanks," Haku replied simply, and Mari could tell from the inflection that he hadn't thought much about it before.

"I wish mine was like this," she grumbled while she brushed and combed his hair with a professional's diligence. "Mine's like a broom – a used broom at that."

Haku nodded slightly but said nothing. Only after the silence was completely unbearable did he look up at her and offer tentatively: "oh."

Mari frowned, grabbed the top of his head and twisted it sharply to face straight ahead. Raising up her instruments, she began slowly at first, to take snips of his hair.

As a client, he was practically perfect. He held perfectly still and responded just right when she tilted his head left, right, up or down. He didn't even flinch when she purposefully came close to nicking his ear.

"It seems like you've done this before," the boy offered matter-of-factly.

"Sure," she said in a matching tone. "I trim my dad, all my brothers and some of our neighbors."

Haku hummed agreeably and again fell silent.

"I guess you just don't talk much, do you?" asserted Mari, whose piercing eyes narrowed.

"Hmm?" he replied. "I'm sorry. I'm rather lost in thought."

"Ok," the girl reluctantly accepted as her scissors and comb continued in harmonious coordination, with the sounds of their actions flowing like music. She vowed not to ask, but did so anyway: "what about?"

"I'm leaving soon," the wounded ninja explained. "So I'm trying to decide where it is I should go."

Mari's mouth fell open and her snipping scissors went quiet. "Don't be stupid," she countered curtly as she brushed the lengths of fallen hair from his pale neck and slender back. "You're not nearly strong enough."

The boy shrugged. "I'm strong enough to manage, I think," he ventured in a maddeningly carefree lilt. "Even if I'm not, I suppose I'll have to be. I cannot stay here."

"Oh, yeah? Why's that?" the girl asked, in what was almost an accusation. "Got somewhere better to go?"

"No, that isn't it," Haku answered plainly. "There are many reasons I should go, the greatest of which is that I will be sought for. But more immediately, your family does not wish me to stay." He turned to look at her once her scissors had stilled. His calm, grey eyes rose. "I assumed you knew."

"Knew what?" Mari frowned and shook her head. "What are you talking about?"

"I heard them talking, your mother and father, I mean," Haku told her. "I didn't mean to overhear, but it's hard not to in this house…especially when you're the one being discussed. Your Father said, 'this isn't a boarding house, a hospital or orphanage, and there are already a lot of mouths to feed.' He's right, too: two adults, seven boys of varying ages, one girl and two infants, if I've counted right.

"They're going to feed me first, dinner then breakfast before they ask me to go." His lips turned up into a fleeting, disarming smile. "Really, it's a very generous gesture. As it is, I'm already indebted to all of you for everything you've done for me."

Mari's brow tensed. "Forget it," she muttered. "No big deal."

While she finished up, the girl looked him over with a cold, clinical eye as she made sure everything was satisfactory, then picked up a wood-framed mirror that was cracked in one corner.

"What do you think?" she blurted, as she held it up before him. "Do you like it?"

Haku looked at his reflection inscrutably and again Mari seemed put-off. "It feels so different," he said uncertainly. "It's much cooler."

"That's not what I asked you!" she said back crossly, left her scissors, comb and brush on her uncle's workbench, then left in a huff.

* * *

**Haku**

Haku watched Mari go, weighed by the feeling that he'd unintentionally upset her somehow. He tracked the girl's thudding footsteps over the creaky floorboards above as she passed into what he presumed was the living room, and then out the door which rattled shut when she slammed it.

"What a truly puzzling person," he murmured to himself then rose gingerly to his feet. Dizziness attacked for a moment and he swayed but soon adjusted. Blood throbbed in his head and around his tender wound. When the sensation eased, he took up the cracked mirror and held it out before him.

Mari really had done a nice job. His new haircut was substantially shorter, but still hung down to his shoulders and looked very natural. "Huh," he said as he turned his head left then right, taking note of the considerable change. "Yes," he decided, "I think I do like it."

For almost an hour, the recovering ninja perused the artist Maceo's basement workshop, but then got bored. Idle browsing and inactivity were not things he was accustomed to, nor could he endure them very easily.

All at once this dingy basement, with its short, high windows, bizarre artworks, and oppressive smells of pigments, turpentine and mold seemed to close in; with its very substance hanging heavily on the ninja's weakened and wracked post-operative body.

_"How has it come to this?!"_ hissed Haku intensely as he began to pace back and forth in restless discontentment. The boy raised a hand to his face in a tormented gesture. _You know how,_ he answered then took a deep breath to try and calm down.

_This is pointless,_ he admitted as he tried to focus, _and you're wasting time._ _Since, for whatever reason, you've decided to live, you're going to need to get your strength back._ _You're on your own now, and it won't be long until the ANBU come looking for you._

_'On your own,'_ the thought repeated direly in his mind. After so many years spent in Zabuza's company and service, the idea seemed quite absurd. _How foolish, how stupid,_ he considered with wry, humorless grin, _that you believed it could never come to this -- that Zabuza would be around forever, that his sword would surely cut down any threat, like…like…_ As Haku fumbled for an apt analogy, his eyes settled on the stray strands of his own cut hair that clung to his borrowed clothes. _No, not like that,_ he concluded dismissively.

The boy tried to laugh but couldn't. It wasn't that funny. Even if it was, laughter now with his master dead, and his own failure as the principle cause seemed wholly inappropriate. He shut his eyes and felt his hands flex unconsciously. _You're wasting time, _he prodded himself.

Pushing aside some of the basement's furnishings and artifacts, he cleared out some space and took his place right in the center. He gathered his concentration and inhaled deeply then, standing straight with his feet together and his hands raised palm to palm, chanted a blessing and opened his spirit to the movements he was about to perform.

Haku allowed his hands to lower to where they came to rest naturally by his sides then, with an effortlessness achieved through long practice, began to move through his routine.

_Prop up Heaven to Regulate the Triple Burner, _he thought as the familiar motions brought back comfortable memories. _By which you mean the chakra centers in the upper, middle and lower portions of your body. Step with your left foot so your feet are shoulder-width apart, pressing into the ground with your heels and gripping the ground with your toes. Your tongue touches the upper palate. Breathe through your nose. Inhale slowly as you raise both hands together, palms facing upwards…_

He could remember so clearly, how patient his master, Zabuza, had been with him – adjusting his posture, correcting his breath and hand positions with his obsessive attention to detail. Warmed by the reminiscence, he proceeded to the next section -- _Draw the Bow to the Left and Right_.

Already the injured ninja could feel his internal energy begin to flow, though it had been sharply disrupted by the near-fatal wound he'd suffered at the hands of the leaf-ninja, Kakashi. Slowly, he reached his arms out then back, up and then down as he transitioned smoothly from stance to stance. The sensation of chakra returning to the abandoned reaches of his body thrilled him, but at the same time let him know how far he'd fallen from the height of his powers.

A creak on the stair drew Haku's attention, but he ignored it and completed the form. This was nothing to worry about. Anyone capable of harming him, even in his current, woefully-depleted state, would not have made so much racket. The people he really had to worry about he would have to sense by their energies, for they could pass through the world without so much as a whisper.

"May I help you," Haku offered the visitor with a sigh, then turned, knowing already that it was the youngest boy, Chuuya, who waited there.

Mari's brother stared blankly then wet his lips while Haku looked up at him with feet together and hands clasped at his narrow waist.

"It's really you, isn't it," gasped Chuuya in almost religious awe as he slowly stumbled his way down the stairs as if he'd forgotten how to walk. "H…Haku…you're really Haku!"

The ninja winced slightly at being identified so bluntly. "At this point, I suppose I can't deny it," the ninja's voice issued smoothly.

The little boy's breath raced, then he sank to his knees and bowed his forehead to the floor three times in quick succession. "Master!" he cried, near to tears, "it is my honor to meet you!"

Haku cringed at this declaration. "The last thing I deserve is respects like this," he said. "Please stand up."

The boy clambered to his bare feet, an act his clumsiness made seem incredibly difficult. Once there, he wriggled and fidgeted.

"Chuuya, isn't it?" Haku ventured at which the newcomer nodded briskly. "How did you know who I was?"

The boy's cow eyes widened. "I saw through the window when Mari brought you here," he reported. "I…I know everything about you!"

The bandaged boy blinked. "Is that so?"

"Oh, yeah!" cried Chuuya. "Like how you and Zabuza almost killed the Mizukage and took over the place. And…and all those fights you had with the ANBU, bandits and rival ninja gangs! That's so cool!"

Haku looked at him, not knowing what to think, except: "There are many who would disagree with you about that…a great many."

"Man," the boy piped, his voice laden with emotion. "I've never met a real-life ninja before. This is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me, ever!"

"Well," Haku smiled awkwardly, "I'm glad you feel that way."

The little visitor grinned and his spherical head bobbed up and down in a comical, yet hypnotic, motion. "Hey!" he squeaked suddenly. "What were you doing just now? Was that some secret ninja stuff?"

"That?" answered Haku. "No, it's a form I learned a long time ago called The Eight-Section Brocade, but it's not at all secret. In fact, it's pretty widely known."

"What's it for?"

"To help me heal," Haku explained off-handedly, and then in greater detail: "Its series of movements are designed to develop the flow of chakra and distribute it evenly throughout the body." His eyes wandered upward as he thought. "It's also good for the organs and helps to regulate the various bodily activities."

"Wow," the boy intoned with slow gravity, as if Haku had just dispensed to him the holiest sutra. "What's chakra?"

The ninja looked at Chuuya with such surprise that the boy shrank away shyly. "I'm sorry," Haku told him. "I just thought, from what your sister mentioned about your interest in ninjutsu, that you would know all about it."

The boy's expression wriggled as he fought desperately for some explanation. The older boy smiled charitably and rescued him. "Chakra is an energy possessed by all living things. Its components are physical, mental and spiritual in nature and can, with diligent training and practice, be harnessed to perform any number of feats."

"Oh!" Chuuya cried excitedly. "You mean jutsu!"

"That's right," said Haku with a nod. "There're jutsu released by hand-seals, but using chakra also allows ninja to run at great speeds or jump high into treetops or up onto roofs. It's also how my master, Zabuza was able to control his zanbato. I trust you understand that no amount of physical strength alone would have been enough to manage a weapon that big – a blade so long and heavy that they call it a horse-cutter."

The boy's face quivered as he thought furiously. "Would you teach me?" he gushed suddenly, "that stuff you were doing…pleeeeeeeease?!"

Haku looked back at him skeptically. "I suppose I could," the ninja answered after some thought. "It's reasonably easy to learn, but I think you'll be disappointed. It takes a lot of time and dedicated training for chakra to rise to a level where you can apply its use." He looked again at his perspective student; fairly certain the boy hadn't heard much past 'I suppose I could.'"

Chuuya wiped his wide face then beamed at him. "But then I'll be able to run really fast, jump around in the trees and do jutsu?"

"Well, in theory," Haku allowed, "if you train hard, with proper focus, and you don't --."

"Let's get started, right now!"

The ninja frowned and, for a moment, felt that he now knew part of the reason why Mari seemed so on-edge much of the time. Despite that, Haku couldn't help but chuckle. "I see you're enthusiastic enough," he said, then ushered the eager pupil toward the center of the open space. "Now remember," Haku instructed, "the foundation is in the stance, the breath and the attitude of being rooted. Think of your body as a conduit through which energy flows from the earth and up into the heavens."

Some time later, after Chuuya could make it all the way through the short form, the boy looked at Haku and grinned, so pleased with himself he could hardly speak.

"That's very good," his teacher complimented him. "I confess I'm surprised. Your ability to concentrate is much greater than I had thought."

The little boy looked at him. "So...," he began hesitantly. "Do you think I could be a bad-ass ninja…like you?"

Haku shrugged. "I honestly don't know. If I could see the reach of a person's potential just by looking at them, then my master would still be alive and I wouldn't have this," he reported solemnly and gestured at the bandaged wound upon his chest."

Chuuya didn't hear that last part, he seemed to be wrapped up in thoughts of his own. The dark-haired kid gave him a fervent look. "Do something cool!" he cajoled abruptly.

"What?" replied Haku with cool indignation. "Do you really expect me to perform for you? I'm not your pet, you know."

"I'm sorry!" the child prevailed. "I didn't mean anything bad!"

"People dedicate their whole lives to the art of ninjutsu," said Haku, who fixed him with a serious look. "It's not for showing off or impressing others with some ridiculous display."

"Oh, ok," the boy replied gloomily as his face fell.

Haku sighed and reached for one of the wooden joists that hung just over his head. Pinching it between thumb and forefinger, he raised his whole body up off the floor and held himself there. "Is this the kind of thing you had in mind?"

Chuuya's eyes went wide as he clapped and laughed loudly. "Coooool!"

The ninja lowered himself gently. "All right, Chuuya, come here," he said and held his right arm out straight. "You might as well learn something besides 'ninjutsu is cooooool.'" The boy looked at him, rapt with attention as his new teacher continued, "Now, try and pull my arm down. Use all of your strength."

Chuuya's eyes followed along his teacher's outstretched arm, then he gripped the wrist with both hands, pulled hard, then gasped in amazement when it didn't move. His young face grimaced as he returned to the challenge, gripped again and yanked with all his might. But instead of pulling the arm down he pulled himself up!

Haku looked at Chuuya as he swayed at the end of his arm. The boy looked back at him, slightly stunned, but then grinned boldly_. I'm not done yet!_ his expression said. Still hanging on, he swung and bounced but was still unable to achieve his desired result. He swung harder then threw his leg over Haku's upper arm like it was the branch of a tree.

"Chuuya," the ninja interrupted him calmly. "Are you learning anything or just playing around?"

The boy looked back at him. "I…I can't move your arm!" he groaned.

A sign oozed from the young ninja. "That's not the point. Look up at my hand and hold on tight." As the boy did so, Haku shook his arm at which his hand and fingers shook loosely. "The point is that there is no muscular tension."

Mari's brother frowned as his mind worked the problem. "Then how can you keep your arm up like this?"

Haku set him down. "Because physical strength isn't involved."

"Then what…?" Chuuya's face looked puzzled before the obvious answer occurred to him – "Oh, chakra!"

"Correct!" his 'master' confirmed then went on sagely, "Physical strength has limits, which chakra can easily surpass. Now, I don't mean to suggest that muscularity isn't important, because it is. Muscles support the carriage and posture, and maintain the internal organs in proper alignment which is essential for the harmonious flow of energy. But as far as real strength, well, you've seen the difference for yourself."

The boy giggled, smiled wildly at Haku, then hopped up and down. "I'll practice what you showed me, Master Haku, every day!" Chuuya fell into a fit of victorious laughter. "My brother, Jimon, thinks he's sooooo smart," he reported. "He said you're just some gay freak who wears dresses. What does he know?!"

Haku's brow lowered as he shifted and turned slightly away.

The boy's ebullience drained as he took notice. "Y -- you aren't…right?" he muttered gravely.

Haku frowned slightly. "A wise man once said: 'questions are a prison for others; answers – a prison for one's self.'" He looked back at Chuuya and appraised his wondering, discomfited expression. "But I can see you're desperate for an answer. And even though I haven't known you very long, you are my 'student' so I suppose I should be honest.

"No, I'm not gay but can understand why some, like Jimon, would think that I am. As for my preference in clothing, I'm afraid that part's true," he explained unrepentantly. "I could explain why, but I doubt it would satisfy you."

"If what I've said makes any difference to you, Chuuya, you're free to go just as you are to stay. But, to tell you the truth…if anyone's answers to those kinds of questions bother you, then I consider you unworthy to learn the mysteries of ninjutsu and suggest that you go, forgetting all I've shown you."

Chuuya sucked in his lips while he considered. From the look on his face it seemed as if it was most difficult and complicated problem he had ever come to grips with, and maybe it was. At last he looked up at Haku and said seriously, "It doesn't bother me."

The young ninja's expression softened with relief, more than he would have guessed. "Well then, since I've answered your question," said Haku cleverly. "You must answer one of mine."

The boy nodded. "Ok," he forced himself to accept, but still obviously felt that this was unfair somehow.

"What is the name of the form I just taught you, as well as the names of all of its sections?"

Chuuya's mouth fell open in sudden alarm as he found himself put on the spot. His eyes roved in thought. "Um…the form is called Ba Duan Jin, The Eight Section Brocade. There's the opening and closing bows," he began tentatively and started to rock nervously back and forth. "The first part's called 'Prop up Heaven to Regulate the Triple Warmer'. The second part is…is 'Draw the Bow to the Left and Right', and then 'Raise One Arm to Regulate the Spleen and Stomach', and then 'Look Backwards to Regulate the Four,' no wait, 'Five Strains and Seven Impairments', and then 'Sway the Head and Buttocks to Eliminate the Heart-Fire', and then 'Touch the Toes to Reinforce the Kidneys', and then 'Clench the Fist and Stare with Anger to Develop Strength and Power', and then 'Rise and Fall on the Toes to Resist Disease'."

Chuuya rolled his tongue around the inside of his cheek as he counted on his fingers, mouthing the words as he counted to himself. "Yeah!" he cried excitedly, "that's it – all eight!"

A smile dawned over Haku's face as he nodded. "Not bad," he offered cheerily, "not bad at all."

* * *

**Toru**

Just as the sun was setting, the weary ANBU Pack-Leader slouched into the patio of an open-air bar called The Junk and joined the rest of his hunter-ninjas at a corner table. He had to shake his head a moment at the name which could be interpreted any number of different ways but was intended, based on the tacky nautical theme, to refer to the type of flat-bottomed sailing vessel.

"Alright, team," he called out, taking note that their meals had already arrived. The aromas made his stomach growl like an idling diesel engine. "What'd you get, anything?"

Aya shook her head uneasily while Orimi reported, "Nothing here, Chief. There's no hospital, just a couple of clinics and there was no sign that Haku had ever showed up at either of them."

Toru turned his attention toward Eiji who gave him a pained look, then turned his thumb down and blew a raspberry. That was his standard version of a summarized report. "I see," the Pack-Leader said. Yukimasa, shaken from some intense reverie, opened his mouth to speak but Toru cut him off. "Let me guess," the burly man said. "The gravediggers don't get paid unless they bury something, which is why they put Haku's coffin in the ground even though it was obvious there was no body in it."

'Masa nodded and took another drink while Orimi grinned wryly. "Your ninja powers are truly astounding," she offered with theatrical grace.

"Yup," quipped Toru, "just like my ass." The man looked around to observe the effect of his joke but found only forced, uncomfortable grins…even from Eiji, who would normally hit a softball like that one out of the park. Toru had suspected from the general vibe he was getting that something was up; now he was sure of it.

Orimi looked up from her meal of beer and boiled fish, intent on changing the subject. "How'd it go with the old man, Chief?" she inquired conversationally, brushing a stray strand of brown hair from her forehead.

Her boss signaled the proprietor, a slack-faced man who was still uncertain about letting a team of ANBU stay in his boarding rooms, then fell into a chair. "He busted my chops pretty good," replied Toru tiredly as he rubbed his bristly face.

"He did what?!" Eiji, whose transparent demeanor was clearly preoccupied, snapped toward him. "Just who the hell does he think he is? Huh, big-shot bridge-builder," he sneered. "If he said half a word I didn't like to me, I'd stomp him so flat you could see through him!"

Toru cracked his neck. "I know, young buck," he replied easily but with emphasis, "that's why I didn't send you."

The ninja startled slightly and Toru could see a flicker of hurt. The Pack-Leader grumbled, having forgotten how young his subordinate really was. By Mist Village standards, Eiji was a veteran. He was an ANBU, and had lasted this long, hadn't he?

By Toru's standards however, he fresh out of the womb and still had much to learn -- like how not to take professional criticism personally. The Pack-Leader rolled his eyes and thought. _Ah, crap, now I got to soften the blow after I already hit him_. "Of course," he added lightly, "if I was really smart, I'd have sent Aya. A pretty face would have gotten a lot better results."

His mention of her name failed utterly to draw the girl's attention, which made Toru even surer that there was something going on. Whatever it was, he'd have to 'put the skunk on the table' as the saying went, then kill it, fillet it and serve it up before it started to go bad. Gossip, politics, secrets and soap-opera bullshit were the death of any team, and he wouldn't have it.

"In any case, Eiji," Toru leaned forward and explained in his best paternal-sounding voice, "us ANBU are few and far between. So it doesn't do us any good going around making enemies. We've already got plenty of those."

Eiji's brow furrowed attentively as he nodded.

Toru sat back, content that he'd rescued the young man's surprisingly-delicate feelings, then casually looked around.

Even this far from shore, he could smell the sea and feel the breeze as it drifted past The Junk's painted, concrete columns and through its open wood trellises. _The islands of the Hidden Mist Village really were beautiful sometimes,_ he mused.

"Did you learn anything at least?" Orimi asked him.

"Yep," Toru said with a smile as his beer arrived, then took a gulp.

Whatever it was his team was keeping from him, Toru realized, they all knew about it. Eiji and Aya were on the edge of their seats, trying desperately to keep it from their thoughts. Yukimasa hid it better, but only because he was prone to bouts of distant thought anyway, so his reticence didn't seem that unusual. Orimi, as he might have guessed, concealed her preoccupation almost perfectly.

The Pack-Leader cleared his throat. "Well," he began, "if there was some deep, dark conspiracy between the Leaf Village and Zabuza and/or Haku, Tazuna sure doesn't know about it. Him and his grandkid were both as surprised that Haku's still alive as we were."

All four ninja nodded with varying degrees of interest.

"Ok," said the big man firmly and flatly. "What's going on?"

Eiji's eyes swiveled furtively, but it was Orimi who broke the news. "Somebody came looking for you, Chief."

Toru gazed at her with disbelief. "Looking for me?" he parroted. "Who?"

The kunoichi turned the question over to Eiji who frowned direly before he replied: "Some ugly bastard," he reported vaguely with a shake of his head, "said his name was Chrissie Ramen…or something."

The big man's head fell back as he broke out in relieved, uproarious laughter. "Oh, yeah?" he snorted and pushed back his black, thick-framed glasses. "Chrissie Ramen, huh, with the skinny arms right?" He laughed again until something dawned on him and his mirth faded. "Wait a sec'," he intoned gravely and leaned toward the young ninja. "Krishaney Rahaman?" Toru clarified emphatically, "big, scary-lookin' m-f…big, bushy, black 'stache?"

Eiji's eyes lit and he nodded earnestly. "Yeah, that's the guy!"

Toru scowled and drew his palm back to pound the table as a curse formed on his lips. It took a fraction of a second for decorum and discipline to rein him in. "That's bad," he ended up saying.

"What?" Eiji guessed, "you owe him money or something?"

Orimi elbowed him, then turned back to Toru. "So tell us already," she insisted. "Who is this guy?"

The ANBU Pack-Leader frowned. "He's the Mizukage's new right hand; came on right after Zabuza's coup. Now, I don't know where the 'Kage found this guy. Maybe he dug him out of some cave or dragged him up from the bottom of the ocean or something. Wherever he came from, he's his personal bodyguard, messenger, and leg-breaker now. I actually met him once right before our team got formed."

"Hmph," snorted Eiji doubtfully. "Is this guy really that bad?"

The others groaned and shook their heads.

"No, no, hold on…," asserted Toru as he restored order. "That's a good question."

"Yeah," the young ninja retorted as he turned on the group. "Just think about all the wanna-be bad-asses who piss their pants when we show up."

"Exactly," agreed Toru. "But remember the flip-side of that coin. There's also people who don't look like much who can kill ya six ways before you hit the ground. Keep that in mind with Haku. Don't let his young age, school-girl face and skinny arms, fool you into forgetting that the little bastard can kick like a mule and bite like a croc-odile." A smile split the man's unshaven face. "But having said all that, team, nobody knows for sure if Rahaman is the real deal or not. So far, nobody's had the guts to test him."

"Alright, alright, I get it!" Orimi huffed impatiently. "So what's he want with you?"

The big man's eyes bugged, seeming even bigger because of the way his thick lenses magnified them. "Hell if I know!"

Eiji chuckled mischievously. "'Seems like overkill just to get you into a proper ANBU uniform."

"Don't hold your breath," Toru replied. "Besides, those damn masks don't fit over my glasses anyway."

Orimi took a sip of her drink then urged, "Come on Chief, take a guess."

"I really don't know," Toru insisted. "I haven't done anything that bad…recently."

Eiji turned suddenly toward Yukimasa. "Hey, 'Masa!" he gusted. "What gives? You haven't said a word this whole time. You gotta know something!"

The ninja's mild face looked up almost in alarm until he smiled tensely and shrugged the question away. "Not me, guys," Yukimasa attested as his face flushed. "I'm as in the dark as anyone!"

The other three hunter-ninja exchanged glances then focused their stares at him.

"Aw, come on, 'Masa," Orimi cajoled. "Don't hold out on us."

The defendant looked around at the jury, but found no sympathetic faces.

"Come on, 'Masa," said Toru firmly. "No one knows the mind of the Mizukage and his bureaucracy better than you, so if you got something figured out then, by all mean, start spittin'."

The ninja's troubled expression fell as he shook his head. "It's nothing, Boss," he mumbled. "It's stupid."

Toru drew himself up. "That's what I assume," he announced. "In case any of you don't know by now, my assumption about each and every one of you is that you're all dumb as posts and can't be trusted – not even to wipe your asses. That will last until you demonstrate to me otherwise. Your being silent when you've got something on your mind ain't gonna get that done. So, that said, for now and from here on out: speak!"

Yukimasa looked up at his leader slowly. "I hate it when you get like this," he seethed, drawing a grin from Eiji and raised eyebrows from Orimi and Aya.

"Good start!" answered Toru, who pounded the table in his enthusiasm. "But quit stallin'." His brow knitted balefully. "Out with it!"

The reluctant ninja's shoulders slumped as he sighed. "The 'Kage's got to be pretty pissed off," he ventured. "Not only did we not get Zabuza, we let a team of Leaf Ninja beat us to him. I don't have to tell you how bad that makes us look." A pall fell over the rest of the team as they considered his report. 'Masa rubbed his chin. "It's going to be that much worse when he finds out Haku's still alive…if he hasn't already."

Toru leaned back then looked away.

"You're right," stated Eiji flatly. "That is stupid. I mean, there's only a handful of ANBU teams to cover all about a thousand miles of coastline and dozens of islands, big and small, scattered over hundreds of miles of ocean! No one could expect --."

"No, Eiji…he's right," Toru muttered sourly. "That's exactly what it is."

"You don't know that, Toru," offered Orimi who patted his arm. "None of us know for sure. 'Masa's only guessing."

"Well Khrishaney Rahaman sure as hell isn't here to deliver my mail!" he barked at her testily then regretted it. "Sorry, Orimi."

"Ok, then," she moved on. "Let's assume worst-case scenario. How bad could it be?"

"Doesn't bear thinking about," the Pack-Leader grumbled and winced. "'Could be censure, reduction in rank, even summary execution."

"Chief!" piped Aya for the first time. "The Mizukage would never do that!"

"He's been through a lot," ventured Toru. "There's no telling where his head's at these days." The Pack-Leader looked around at the rest of his ninja. "Well…team," he began, trying to sound upbeat. "We're not done just yet. We've still got us a bad-guy to catch." Turning toward his young protégé, he asked: "Eiji, where's Rahaman now?"

The young man's expression blanked. "Uh, well," he started, "we kind of ditched him."

"Ditched him?" inquired Toru with more than a trace of concern.

"Yeah, Chief. See, he asked where you were, and…and I guess we kinda freaked, so --."

"It was me, Pack-Leader Yamashite," admitted Aya in her soft voice, at which Toru turned toward her in shock. "I…I told him you were following up on a lead at Durgon Atoll."

"Durgon Atoll?" repeated Toru with disbelief. "That's at least three-hundred miles north. Did he actually buy that?"

"You should've heard her, Chief," said Eiji with a shark-like smile. "She said it with such a straight face, even I believed it."

Toru barked a laugh. "It figures you kids take up all my bad habits and leave the good ones behind." He smiled gently. "Still, Aya, good job! You've bought us some time."

Orimi sat up rigidly. "So what do we do now?"

"Well, first," the Pack-Leader dictated, "we finish our drinks and enjoy a nice meal." He then took in the table with an intense, sweeping look before he continued, "And then we catch and kill us one demon's apprentice."

* * *

Writer's note -- How am I doing? What all do you think so far?

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

**Haku**

Haku sat with straight-postured impatience, bare to the waist, on the mattress and blanket-covered worktable that had served as his bed for the last several days, while Maceo again changed his bandages and inspected his healing wound. Mari assisted and peeked eagerly over her uncle's shoulder.

"Just a minute, Mr. Ants-in-pants," the bearded, former doctor grumbled at his impatient patient, "I'll be done soon enough."

The boy grinned tightly, displeased at his own lack of discipline for letting his discomfiture show so obviously.

_But I can't help it!_ he hissed to himself.

Being all exposed like this, practically naked, and subjected to the inspection of people he didn't even know until just a few days ago was unacceptable. He already knew what he looked like and that it would, most-likely, fail their expectations. As a boy, a young man really, there were certain standards of developing masculinity compared to which his willowy limbs and porcelain complexion would fall well short. Days of bed-rest and recuperation in this dank, sun-starved basement had not helped him out any in this regard.

As hard as Haku tried to sit still, his uncooperative body struggled to express its distaste. His fingers wanted to wring, his jaw to tense, his eyes to roll, his skin to crawl, his lungs to sigh, his legs to quake, and the whole rest of him to squirm. It was too much for him to keep track of, and whenever he did manage to pacify one zone another would rise up in rebellion.

Finally, after all the poking and prodding, looking into his eyes and ears and taking his temperature and blood pressure, Maceo peeled away the old bandages to check his patient's progress.

The young ninja looked up as the man flared with alarm.

Mari took her uncle's arm in a desperate grip. "What is it?!" she squeaked urgently, "what's wrong?"

The large man rose, beetled his brow, and pushed her off gently. "He's nearly healed."

"That's good," the slender, black-haired girl suggested then added, "isn't it?"  
Maceo shrugged. "It's impossible," he put forth. "The body just can not repair itself that fast, but," the man paused long enough to allow himself a contemplative breath, "since it was impossible for anyone to survive that wound you brought him in here with in the first place, I suppose I shouldn't let it bother me."

Mari clapped her hands. "Good," she piped delightedly.

"Tell me, Haku," said Maceo, who leaned toward him with raised eyebrow. "I take it your miraculous recovery is due to some sort of nin-jer magic?"

Haku, who'd leaned all the way flat out to retrieve his oversized shirt, now put it on hurriedly. "It isn't really magic," he offered flatly. "As part of my training, my diet included a variety of herbs and roots, teas, infusions and minerals, the qualities of which I have stored in my body and assist in the healing process. I am also able to harness my internal energy – the power of my chakra."

The ensuing frown made Maceo's lips vanish into the bristles of his unkempt beard. "Well la…dee…da!" replied the man in a voice thick with sarcasm.

The door from upstairs swung open, shrieking on hinges that were badly in need of oil, and Chuuya's boat-whistle voice cried out: "DINNER'S REA-DY!"

All three winced reflexively at the special quality of the little boy's pitch which plucked the nerves of the ears and spine like discordant banjo strings.

Haku had already surmised young Chuuya's message based on the savory cooking aromas that wafted down from above, the frequent clatter of dishes, and then the sudden storm of rumbling footfalls followed by what sounded like a thousand chair legs being dragged scraping over the floorboards.

Mari turned, cupped her hands at her mouth then answered with matching energy: "O-KAAAAAAY!" She leaned close to Haku. "Are you ready?"

"Sure," he answered quietly. "Why wouldn't I be; it's just dinner, right?"

"Well, yes, but," she stumbled worriedly, "it's just that, my dad's really curious about you and I know he's going to ask you lots and lots of questions, so…what are you going to tell him."

Haku stood, smoothed his appearance then cocked his head to clear a crick in his neck. "The truth."

Mari blinked successively, then she sucked in her lips and glanced at Maceo whose eyes had just gone wide. "Um, yeah," she began tentatively as her lean arms dropped to her waist. "About that…I'm not sure that's such a good idea."

"I am a guest in your parents' house," Haku explained. "I think it would be contemptuous of me to answer their hospitality with lies."

Mari stared at him blankly, taken-aback and shocked with disbelief. "What the hell kind of house did you grow up in? We'd all be dead if we told mom and dad the truth all the time!" she stated pointedly, then turned toward Maceo. "Uncle?" she pleaded, but the man backed up a step and raised his open hands.

"Hey, my name's Paul and you can figure the rest out between yourselves," he offered obliquely then headed up the steps.

The girl's eyes pinched into slits as she stared up crossly at the departing figure. "Nobody gets that joke but you," Mari snarled snarkily then turned back again to Haku to try again, but the boy had already made his way to the foot of the stairs and looked at her meaningfully.

Somewhat defeated, she moved to him and looked up into his grey eyes. "I guess you've got to do what you've got to do," Mari acquiesced, "it's part of your ninja way or whatever." Her face fell sadly. "I just…really wish you could have stayed longer."

Haku's expression went slack and his lips parted as he was struck by her sentiments and the heartfelt nuances in her voice. He reached for her, but she turned away suddenly then paced up the stairs.

The recovering ninja looked after her then followed her up and into a short hallway. From there they went almost immediately into the front room where the table was set and the rest of the Tezuka household awaited.

The riot of loud voices, clattering china and the general whirl of activity died away as Haku arrived at the threshold behind Mari then made his way quietly to one of the two empty chairs packed all the way around a cloth-covered dining table, next to Maceo. Smiling uneasily, the newcomer moved his chair out, slipped in, then pulled the chair back under him and sat, all without making so much as a sound.

Many pairs of dark-colored eyes stared at him. His departure from convention had earned him no good will. Mari pushed in next to him, forcing Haku to lean heavily into Maceo's meaty shoulder and tuck his elbows and narrow, sloping shoulders in so that they could all fit.

One of the middle Tezuka brothers, Gengo, Haku thought, giggled and leaned toward another brother's ear then whispered. "He looks like a girl," is what everyone heard. Both nodded unsubtly and broke out into barely-suppressed fits of snickering laughter.

"Hey," intoned Mr. Tezuka gravely from the end of the table with a definite 'I'm going to beat your ass' vibe. "Can it."

The grins fell from the two brothers' faces as they adopted immediately the affectation of compliance, yet mischievous looks continued to pass between them.

Haku's expression wriggled for a moment before he was able to plaster a tolerant smile over his face. After all, from what he'd overheard, this was going to be his first, last and only meal he shared at the Tezukas' table.

Mari's father, who he knew thus far only as 'daddy' or 'Mr. Tezuka' was shorter than Haku had expected given the size of his brother, Maceo, and with coal-colored hair flecked with grey. The upper part of his face was tan and smooth, but descended into fields of black stubble further down. His frame was lean from labor and his forearms were sun-baked brown, knotted with muscle, and ropey with tubular veins. Though his demeanor seemed casual, Haku could tell it had merely been subdued – it was the end of the day and he was tired.

A grin flicked across the visiting ninja's face as he judged that his two sons had done the right thing, for their father clearly had no patience for any nonsense.

His wife, Haku noticed, looked quite a lot like what he would expect of an older version of Mari – her eyes, her face, but with brown hair not black.

Turning now to the brothers, who he knew from talking to Mari, the oldest, Jimon, sat beside his father, with his face an almost-expressionless mask. Not even the presence of an odd-looking stranger held much interest for him. It surprised Haku for a moment before he remembered that Jimon had just started work at the construction site and was, presumably, worn to the bone.

The middle three: Aito, Gengo and Ryuunosuke came next in order. For brothers, they really didn't look much alike, until you noticed all the little details of their faces – the noses, the ears and the shapes of their eyes, only then would you reach the conclusion that such similarities could not be by chance. Although they too were working now, it was evidently not at hard-labor like their brother and so their youthful exuberance remained undiminished.

The youngest, Chuuya, Haku's de-facto student and the only Tezuka brother that he'd actually met thus far, sat quietly at the other end of the table somewhat pensively as he waited to see what, if anything, would happen tonight.

Lastly, the two babies, Fumio and Fushashi, rounded out the table on the other side of Maceo who had apparently been put in temporary charge of them.

Captivated by the smells, Haku surveyed the entrees set before him and his eyes widened. There was broiled whitefish in an herbed broth, mountains of rice, steamed carrots and potatoes, crusty bread with butter, and steaming pots of green tea.

Mrs. Tezuka offered a prayer, keeping it short in understanding of her offspring's impatience, after which the bowls and plates of food were passed around.

"Mr. Hiroo Okame," said the father, as Haku eagerly took a portion of the tender fish then added a ladle of vegetables and a hunk of bread. It took him a moment to realize, after noticing the change in Chuuya's expression and the sudden tension he felt in Mari's hard shoulder, that the man was referring to him.

_I see,_ he thought. _Mari and perhaps Maceo have given me an alias._ He cleared his throat as if it needed to be, then answered smoothly, "Yes, sir, Mr. Tezuka?"

"Welcome to our house. We're all certainly glad you're alright," the man offered, dropped a mound of rice onto his plate, then proceeded around the table with the pro-forma introductions.

Only Mari's mother granted him a kind look and sympathetic smile, while the Tezuka sons preferred grunted or mumbled greetings, curt nods of their heads and stares that seemed vaguely territorial.

"How are you feeling?" Mr. Tezuka asked, and Haku read his inflection – _are you well enough to leave without burdening my conscience?_

"Very well, sir, I'm almost completely healed now," Haku answered then gave nods toward his left and right, "thanks to Mari and Mr. Maceo."

The middle brothers again looked at each other and grinned at their visitor's mellow, lilting and somewhat feminine tenor.

Their father grunted sharply and glared at them, then looked at his daughter inscrutably. "Well, why don't you tell us a little about yourself," he continued sociably, now more at ease, "like where you're from?"

Again Haku felt Mari's shoulder tense. He restrained himself from looking over at her then made a mental note that this girl was surprisingly, and quite admirably, strong. "The southern coast," he answered, "high in the foothills. But it's been a long while since I was there."

"Oh," said Mr. Tezuka interestedly as his eyes lit, "I heard it's really nice and peaceful…lots of deer and rabbits. I might have moved down there, but the winters sounded a little too long and cold for me."

"It is cold, but very --," Haku's voice halted and his expression glazed over for a moment before he continued with a demure smile and a far-away voice, "beautiful, haunting even when the snow covers everything in a blanket of white."

The boys seated across from him paused for a moment in their thus-far continuous eating motions, with chopsticks frozen en route to open mouths.

Haku dipped his head, taking advantage of the awkward silence to eat. It really was a tremendously good meal, so much better than the simple fare he was accustomed too traveling with Zabuza.

"Yaeko," offered Maceo to his sister-in-law, "this is great, really."

"Thank you, Maceo," the woman replied graciously. "We ended up with a little more money set aside for food this month so I thought – why not have a decent meal for a change?"

Her husband quickly agreed, nodding vigorously as he ate.

When she was through fielding compliments, Mrs. Tezuka turned toward her guest. "Mari told us you have no parents, Hiroo," she asked delicately, "is that right?"

Haku nodded, supposing that Mari had picked a phonetically-similar name so that it would be easier for him to remember. "Yes, Ma'am, I was orphaned when I was quite young."

She seemed embarrassed at having asked. "Oh, I'm so sorry for that."

Her husband followed up: "But you must have someone caring for you, friends, family?"

"It's just me, I'm afraid."

Mr. Tezuka's expression turned perplexed. "It's sure a long way from the south coast," he said between mouthfuls. "What on earth brought you here?"

"Work," answered Haku. "My employer took a job here and brought me along, so it was me, him and two others -- brothers."

The man nodded approvingly. "Ah, contract labor?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Well, where are they now? I mean, even if they're not blood kin they're bound to wonder what's happened to you."

Haku lifted his head in thought. "Well…the two brothers just kind of vanished one day. I don't really know for certain what happened to them. But the man who brought me here," the boy's eyes dipped as he struggled for the simple words: "he's dead."

The way he'd said it brought the table to silence.

"Dead?" asked Jimon, who asserted himself into the conversation now that he'd dulled the edge of his appetite. "You mean killed?"

Haku nodded somberly.

Mr. Tezuka leaned over his plate with a serious look. "Was it Gato's men?"

Haku again nodded.

The man scowled and turned his head away, seized by some profundity of emotion. "Damn that man," he cursed coldly. "I hope he's toasty in hell."

"Masuo," his wife prevailed firmly, "please."

"I mean it!" Continued Mr. Tezuka, undeterred. "Who the hell was he to sink so many people into poverty, to have his goons run around wild killing people on the streets? For what; just so he could be some kind of big-shot? Where's our Council of Elders? Where're the Provincial Lords? Where's the Mizukage in all this -- still hiding from Momochi even though the bastard got himself killed? It's a disgrace!"

Haku's host drummed his fingers against the table-cloth in clear agitation, and everyone could sense he was building up a head of steam. "With the taxes we pay, you'd think somebody could do something. Between the gangs and the ninja, regular people can't catch a break. Their ain't one of them that's any damn good."

"What about those leaf-ninjas, dad?" piped Gengo with unbridled indiscretion. "I mean, if it wasn't for them, Tazuna would've been killed for sure and he'd never have gotten our bridge built!"

Father rolled his eyes. "Son," he explained tiredly. "Those leaf-ninja were here for two reasons: one, Tazuna paid for their services, which was a really, really smart move on his part by the way; and two, they like to fight. That's just how they are; that's what they do all that training for. If they're not killin' somebody, they're not happy. That's just how it is."

Haku brooded thoughtfully that the man's observations were hard to refute. Glancing at Chuuya, he saw that the boy's brow was troubled.

"But dad," continued Aito, "we did get our bridge. They even named it after one of the genin: The Great Naruto Bridge."

Dad moaned. "I would love to agree with you, Aito, boys," he began, and swept a look over his sons. "I would love it if ninja were just, like, these happy public servants who traveled all over the land doing good deeds, rescuing kittens from trees, and beating up bad guys…but it's just not like that.

"They're heartless killers who get paid, one way or the other, for what they do in service to their hidden villages. Just because we happened to benefit from the way that fight on the bridge worked out doesn't make any of them heroes. My guess is that you wouldn't find a decent human being among them."

Haku, who sat there squished between Mari and Maceo, dwelled on the elder Tezuka's words and found himself stirred with emotion. Was the man right or not?

If you considered Kakashi Hitake's unfathomable powers, could you really consider him a hero for what he'd done? What of Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki? Hadn't they fought merely for the sake of their own pride – to prove something to themselves and each other? What of Sakura Haruno, who'd found herself in way over her head. Hadn't she stayed just to impress her teammates or avoid being shamed in their eyes?

No, Haku decided, there was more to it…much more. All that aside, look at the way they'd cared for each other; the way they were willing to risk their lives for each other. It wasn't about pride or service, not at the end anyway. They all could have left at any time after it had become clear that Tazuna had misled them shamelessly about the nature of the threats they faced.

The four leaf-genin and their sensei, Kakashi, coalesced like spirits conjured by his memory. He could see them again so clearly: Sasuke, the last scion of the Uchiha, with his sharingan eyes hard and burning with confidence; Sakura, the pretty, pink-haired girl, who, despite her terror, stood her ground and guarded Tazuna, the man she'd been assigned to protect; then Naruto…

Haku relived their encounters, from the foursome's first victory over Zabuza, to his chance meeting with Naruto in the forest, to their battle on the bridge that now bore the blond genin's name.

Those ninja did care. They were not heartless killers; they were heroes -- imperfect heroes to be sure, but heroes just the same.

Haku swallowed hard, realizing that he was about to throw away all the passive misdirection he'd done, and probably make things very uncomfortable for Mari in the process. He drew a deep breath and started to speak, to set them all straight about their visitors from the Hidden Leaf Village and incidentally, about himself.

"There is one, anyway, Dad," reported Jimon abruptly, breaking Haku from his intent.

The father gave his son a dubious look. "Oh yeah, who's that?"

The young man looked around the table. "Ok, check this out: so these bandits jacked one of our subs at the site today, about fifty of them, right?" he started in a compelling voice that at once riveted the attention of his younger siblings. "They knocked over their equipment van and killed a bunch of their guards, but then this big, fat guy mist-ninja comes out of nowhere," he smacked his palms together sharply, "killed all of 'em just like that with these sick jutsus. It was cra-zy."

Dad blew out a breath, shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. "Bastard was just showing off," he commented sourly. "Who ever heard of a fat ninja anyway?"

Mom was much less amused by the story. At once she frowned and set her chopsticks down. "I knew it was too dangerous for you boys to work down there!"

"Mom!" Jimon protested vehemently. "Come on, we're all fine. It's no big deal."

"Yeah!" agreed his brothers.

"There've always been bandits running around, honey," opined Mr. Tezuka, and soon the whole table was talking, arguing and shouting over each other.

"All right, all right!" commanded father at last, restoring a semblance of order to the house with the intonation of his voice. "We'll talk about this later, ok?"

For awhile, only the sounds of eating and drinking, and occasional burbles from the infants broke the silence. Haku kept his gaze down, feeling the strange tension this family imposed on each other. Though it was uncomfortable, it also felt…oddly normal, even reassuring somehow.

As for his plan to explain the full length and breadth of his opponents' valor, he put it aside. The moment had gone. Anyway, as much as he might try to explain the strength of Sasuke's will, the passion of Naruto's dream, or the extents of Sakura's loyalty, he doubted he'd be able to do any of them justice. And if that was the case, then how could he explain the scope of his master, Zabuza Momochi's, sweeping, all-consuming vision to hold all the Land of Waves in his hands?

"We really are so very lucky," offered Mrs. Tezuka in a calm, maternal voice that drew her husband's concerned glance. "With all the violence that surrounds us and all the trouble…here we all are together, safe, healthy, and we have enough food for everyone, even with my sister's little ones and a guest."

Mr. Tezuka sighed then reached out to squeeze her arm affectionately. "You're right, honey. Absolutely."

Haku looked at the two of them and the look that passed between them. Memories of his former life came flooding back from when he was part of a family. He had to bite down to stop himself from tears at what he'd lost, at what he'd missed out on. Then too he was struck at how happy they were, and how different from his former master. Zabuza's ambition was to rule the Land of Waves, while this woman and her husband were thankful enough that they were alive, had enough to eat, and for their children.

The Demon of the Hidden Mist would have laughed, thought Haku, at their paltry lives. But as the fugitive sat there, he could honestly not argue that their dreams held any less meaning than his Master's.

"Oh!" piped Mom happily, breaking the mood. "I almost forgot…Mari, would you like to do the honors?"

The lone daughter looked up and grinned, then wriggled her way from her seat, pushing off Haku's shoulder as she went. She returned bearing a plate of warm pastries topped with butter and honey and dusted with cinnamon. Cries and murmurs of delight rose from the table.

"Wow," said father, "real honey? How on earth could we afford…Mari, you didn't by any chance lift a rack or two from Mr. Tran's apiary when you were working over there, did you?"

The girl froze and a blank expression came over her face. "Um…," she started.

"Well, it's ok this time," said Mr. Tezuka, releasing his daughter from the precipice his question had put her on, "but from now on, we'll pay for it."

Mari blew out a relieved breath then resumed her seat beside Haku, who took the plate Maceo passed to him and lifted a dripping pastry from it. Biting into it, he found it as rich and sweet as anything he'd ever tasted.

"Guys, everyone, there's something I've got to say," Father announced, and his eyes swept the table to make sure everyone was really listening. "In the name of keeping this house together and putting food on the table, I've done a lot of things I don't like. I get up every morning to catch and gut fish. It's not what you'd call glamorous work, but it's a living." The man's jaw tensed as he mulled over what he was about to say. "But I've also done some things I'm not proud of too, and…and this is the part I hate most: that I've turned a blind eye when you followed the shitty example I set."

Haku, though not part of the family, nevertheless felt the weight of the man's admission and couldn't help but give him his complete attention along with all the others.

"The thing is," Father began again and they could all tell this was hard for him, "being poor is no excuse…it's an explanation sure, but no excuse. It's not like the two just magically cancel each other out and I don't want anyone here to think that it does. That anyone would steal to survive is understandable…maybe we've all had some shortcomings because of that, but…but it's a slippery slope between doing something because you think you have to, and doing something because it's a habit.

"The point is: what's past is past. We're starting to make it now so we, and I mean all of us, got to stop it." A guilty smile broke over his face as he turned to his daughter and winked. "So, Mari, no more sticky fingers, right?"

The girl nodded, a smile on her face. "Right, Dad."

"Hiroo," said Father who acknowledged his guest after a breath. "I'm sorry I had to air all that laundry in front of you like that. I guess you could call it 'wrong place, wrong time,' but sometimes what's got to be said needs to be said right then, you know?"

Haku nodded and held up his hand, signaling that he understood.

"As you can see, we're not exactly living like kings around here," Mr. Tezuka continued, and his guest knew where this was leading. "Sometimes I really wonder how we make it from day to day."

Haku nodded again and smiled graciously. "Yes, Sir, I understand perfectly. But I'd like to say how thankful I am for all the care you and your family have given me."

The man grinned and grunted, gesturing vaguely. "To say that your coming here was a surprise would be an understatement, but --." He looked over at his wife and it seemed as if volumes passed between them. "-- I guess if you have nowhere else to go, then, well, you're welcome to stay with us."

Haku blinked, having been taken off guard. "Uh," he sputtered. Up until this moment, it had been set in his mind that he would have to go. Every inclination from his time with Zabuza urged him to go. The words he was going to use to make his exit dignified and graceful were right there at the front of his mind and the tip of his tongue, yet he found himself saying: "Thank you, Mr. Tezuka and everyone. I'll…I'll do my best not to be a bother."

* * *

**Malfaiteures**

_Blessed is the Lord, my strength,_

_which teacheth my hands to war,_

_and my fingers to fight…_

_--Psalms 144:1_

Juri Chono stood rigidly on the cracked pavement, with the upraised palm of her left hand held at the center of her chest, edge out. She had a wide, lean, broad-shouldered build, freckled skin and a flat-featured face which carried an expression of intense, martial focus. The white t-shirt she wore was grayed and damp with sweat from her training, and frayed at the collar and sleeves. Her hair, blond now only through the application of brute, chemical force, was tucked up under a flat-topped, black, kufi-style cap that was banded with copper. Baggy, black shorts revealed scabbed knees and bruised shins. Around each of Juri's forearms circled a dozen thick, metal rings that gleamed in light of the mid-day sun.

Out before her stretched an expanse of worn, stained concrete pavement. Deep, broad puddles formed in its low spots, and grass grew high in the many cracks and joints.

To her right stood the main building of what had been a factory of some sort. Its brick, pilastered walls rose up around broken, dust and cobweb-veiled windows to a tile-capped parapet. To the girl's left stepped a long run of loading docks that fronted a voluminous storage building clad with rusting, corrugated metal.

Behind her, at the base of the factory's 'U'-shaped layout, the pavement yielded suddenly and unexpectedly to a breathtaking garden populated with Japanese maples, small pines and ornamental shrubberies interspersed around a clear, undulant pond in which fish frolicked. The center was taken by a field of clean, white pebbles that were raked into swirling patterns around clusters of large, rounded stones.

In the thick of the plants, an old man toiled in blue coveralls, weeding, pruning and inspecting the verdure with loving care, oblivious to the girl's presence. At the edge of the garden, where it bordered the pavement, lay mounds of gravel, sand and soil, along with a shovel, trowel, rake and a sundry collection of other tools. Throughout the garden, sprinklers misted, and water hissed and spat from their hoses leaky connections.

A clear, musical note chimed softly, and the young woman's golden-yellow eyes darted up toward one of the twelve bells that hung every so often around the yard. Gathering her breath, Juri skipped in place and saluted crisply with right fist pressed into left palm. She then opened her feet and settled into a low, horse stance. Her hands, tensed into claws but with the forefinger extended, rose behind her ears, pulled back by her ribs then shot forward. The metal rings all slammed forth as one with a solid, metallic chord against the backs of her veined hands.

Across the yard, the pattern of the form took her. She shifted from stance to stance, with her fists, clawed fingers or open palms blocking, sweeping and striking. The rhythms of the young woman's breaths, focused shouts and the solid 'chink' of her rings echoed musically through the quiet precincts of the abandoned factory.

The fury of Juri's motions carried her over an inches-deep puddle, her solid stances finding purchase upon the water's glassy surface, held there by the force and balance of her cultivated chakra. Before she could pass over it though, a bell again sounded, and the young woman halted in place then turned her head toward two approaching figures. Each carried swords at their waists.

Waiting for them, she shifted to a long, lunging 'hill-climbing' stance, with her back straight and both ring-laden arms held out in front of her straight and level with her shoulders. As Juri regarded the two, she couldn't help but frown as they stopped at the edge of the water on which she stood then bowed low and waited for her acknowledgement.

The first man: tall and deeply tan, was bare-chested and sported wave and vine tattoos across his left side, shoulder and arm. A black patch covered his right eye while a grizzly scar sat like a spider over his left. His brown, matted hair was tied into three bulbous tufts, while a pointed goatee hung from his chin. "What's this bitch's name again?" he whispered harshly to the other man.

His shorter, younger confederate looked back at him with eyes that had thin wedges tattooed under them. Straight, white hair hung from beneath a blue stocking cap, and his lean frame was practically engulfed by the light, hooded jacket he wore. "Juri Chono," he whispered back hastily, adding for emphasis: "as in 'in-jury'."

"Ok, I get it," spat the one-eyed man through one side of his mouth, "but who the hell put her in charge?"

"She did!" the other hissed. "She's got backing too, man, so stop fing around."

The two unwelcome visitors fell silent as they felt the weight of the woman's scrutiny upon them.

"Zori," said the girl in a stoic voice to the capped, white-haired man, "and Waraji," she said to the other. "Why are you here?"

The two rose, looked at each other then shared an uncomfortable glance, only now realizing that the person to whom they spoke felt compelled for some reason they did not fathom to remain in-stance with her weighted arms held out. Their eyes looked over the woman's training rings and calculated that they must be fearsomely heavy.

Zori spoke at last in a halting voice, "they're, ah…dead, Miss Chono."

Juri's eyes shot toward him. "What are you talking about?" she rumbled.

"Everybody you sent," Waraji explained in his gruff voice, "even Wei and Yuri."

The woman's wide nose wrinkled as she shifted her posture and settled back with catlike grace into a deep stance called 'leaning horse,' with one leg bent sharply and the other outstretched. "How," she asked demandingly, "who did it?"

The two bandits exchanged a look. "Some big fat guy," Zori described, "a ninja of the Hidden Mist. We've never seen him before."

Juri made a face. "And yet you two managed to get away without a scratch." She hissed a sigh then shook her head, dismissing her own observation. "Never mind, that's nothing about nothing. After all, how else would I find out about this?"

Worried looks flew over the two men's downcast faces. "What do you want us to do?" asked Waraji anxiously while his partner nodded.

"Let's see," Juri offered casually and shut her golden eyes, then rose up smoothly into a one-legged crane posture with her arms held straight out like the letter 'T', breathing in slowly through her nose and exhaling through her mouth.

After awhile without an answer, the two visitors looked at the young woman with increasing curiously as she dipped into a cat-stance with both arms held over her in a circle. Though there was no wind, one of the yard's hanging bells chimed and it was answered by another, then another in a sort of mournful melody.

Juri harkened. Her eyes opened slowly then looked at the two men as she ordered: "I want that man, the mist ninja, dead by this time tomorrow."

Zori and Waraji's expressions lit then squirmed. "Do…do you want us to do it?" rattled Waraji uncertainly.

The young woman shook her head. "Being that you got beat up by a twelve-year old leaf-genin not two weeks ago, I'd be stupid to send you," Juri commented acridly. "I'm not about to send weasels to do a wolf's work. No, tell Thanthevong. He's aching for a true test of his skills anyhow."

Conflicted looks played over the two career-criminals' faces: relief on one hand; the sting of being insulted on the other.

One of the bells rang again, but, disturbingly, its music was well out of synch with the gentle wind.

"Ah, what do you know," said Juri, "I have a thing for you to do after all."

"What's that?" the two piped in accidental unison.

"You must complete your last assignment -- that boy, Inari, who you failed to kidnap?" Juri waited until the bandits gave her begrudging nods. "He's become something of a hero around here like Kaiza before him. Therefore, he too must die."

"We understand," grunted Waraji, utterly without reservations.

"Consider it done," added Zori.

Juri smiled grimly, not that she expected any reluctance from this pair about the cold-blooded murder of an eight-year old. "There's no rush," she clarified, "just so long as it is done by week's end."

The two underlings bowed then hastened away. Once they were gone, Juri moved again into the rhythms of her form. Her arms struck and slashed while her legs moved fluidly over the ground, keeping her low and stable. The training rings she wore tinkled and clinked in a kind of chaotic harmony punctuated by chords whenever she struck straight.

When at last she was finished and she'd given the closing salute, she panted for breath and her shoulders quivered from the exertion.

"Not bad," a mellifluous baritone opined. "But your arms should be level when you go through 'Tiger closes and opens the gate'. Also your intensity level needs to be higher, although I'll grant you that your flow was disrupted by the interruption of those two idiots."

Juri blinked and couldn't help but nod. "Thank you, Shr-fu," she managed respectfully then twitched sharply as a drip of sweat coursed toward her eye.

"You may rest now, Juri. I wish to speak with you."

The young woman straightened her arms and pinched her fingers together, allowing the massive, ringed weights to drop from her arms to the pavement where they landed in a resounding clatter. Grimacing, but grateful for the relief, she rubbed her aching shoulders and hands while the old gardener approached.

"You've done well," the man allowed generously. Though he was old, he was really very handsome, even beautiful. He was tall, slim and broad-shouldered, with a mane of silver hair and a reassuring, avuncular grin that flashed a row of perfect, white teeth. "They're taking orders from you already. I told you they would."

The girl sniffed coolly. "They don't respect me," she pointed out and looked off in the direction where Zori and Waraji had gone, with hands braced on her hips. "They're just afraid."

The gardener shrugged then patted his own perspiring brow with the back of his sleeve. "Those two are incapable of excellence, my dear; therefore compliance is all you need from them. That they fear you is enough. You must remember that fear and reward are humanity's principle motivators."

Juri looked up at her teacher who wiped his hands with a rag then gestured for her to walk beside him.

"It's worth noting that the Tiger-Boxing system has few female exponents," her master remarked as he set a leisurely pace toward his garden. "They tend to lack the core strength required for its stances and tense upper-body motions."

Juri's expression gave away nothing, but her eyes swiveled sharply at her companion who had never been the source of a compliment before. What he'd just said, for him, was like gushing praise from anyone else.

"Oh," he offered as an aside. "The man who dispatched our assets so unexpectedly is an ANBU Pack-Leader named Toru Yamashite."

The student grunted. "Oh yeah?" she said, unimpressed. "Is he tough?"

A frown flickered over the gardener's lined face as he looked up to note the overhead flight of a pair of passing seagulls. "Not especially…but yet he's outlasted many I'd thought were tougher – no easy feat in a profession that tends to discourage longevity."

Juri scowled then asked pointedly, "Is he a problem?"

"Merely another obstacle in the path," the old man clarified with a sagacious air. "He began his career as a loyal soldier but, like so many things in this world, his qualities have not improved over so long a time. He's grown quirky, even subtly rebellious, and won't last much longer even if our assassin fails us."

"What's he doing here of all places?"

"Hunting down Zabuza, or so I understand."

The girl scowled then blew out a breath. "'Must get paid by the hour, 'cause Zabuza's dead, him and Haku…and that was a couple of weeks ago!"

"Hmm," the old man considered, bringing a hand to his chin. "You're right of course. There's no apparent reason for him and his cell to remain." His clever, blue eyes pinched in thought. "It may be that he's pursuing his own business rather than the Mizukage's…or…perhaps the Demon of the Hidden Mist and his apprentice aren't quite as dead as it would seem." Juri's teacher drew slowly to a stop as he mused. "Either way, this could be quite an interesting turn," he said, then turned to his disciple with forefinger upraised. "Please, Juri, investigate this matter as soon as practicable."

The two walked a bit further then paused at the threshold of the old gardener's plot – he studying its aesthetics and she awaiting him.

"Juri," the silver-haired man said at last as he looked beyond the rooftops of the old factory building and into the sky, "you've seen this garden since I started cultivating it. Tell me, what do you think?"

The girl's brow twitched as she searched for the answer she thought her teacher wished to hear. "It is very pleasing to the eye," she reported.

The old man grunted affirmatively. "You can say it – it's beautiful. Do you know what makes it so?"

Juri shook her head, puzzled at the track of this conversation.

"The composition of its elements," her teacher disclosed. "Let me explain. This garden is comprised of diverse parts -- trees, flowers, stones, pools and so on as you see, but they all contribute to form a greater whole. Everything is considered in the overall design – the surrounding buildings here, even the arc of the sun as it moves across the sky, and the direction of the winds are part of it. At the root of composition is order."

"Yes, Shr-fu."

The old man frowned. "Don't 'yes, Shr-fu' me," he chided, then said more softly, "not this time. All I needed from you before was your compliance, but you're past that now. From this point on I need your excellence, and so you must strive to understand."

"Yes, Shr --," Juri stopped herself and grimaced awkwardly, realizing now that all this was not merely an anomaly as she'd hoped, but marked a portentous change from the way things had been. "I will try."

Her teacher led the way into his garden, moving slowly along a winding, flagstone pathway. "Each element, by which I mean each single, individual thing in this garden," he declared, then looked back at his pupil and gestured around with his long arms and artistic hands, "has its place and purpose."

The girl forced herself to listen carefully. "I think I take your meaning, Shr-fu," she ventured hesitantly. "This garden is the same as you…as one would wish the Land of Waves to be, with everything in its proper place."

The man's silver brow rose then fell. "Exactly so."

The student fidgeted and shifted her weight then stared into the garden doubtfully. "Can you really understand the one by understanding the other?"

"I like to think so," the old teacher admitted, grinning cleverly, "Though they differ in their complexity of course. Plants and people are quite different, but both require tools to manage properly."

"What sorts of tools manage people?" asked Juri, seizing on the question she thought her master awaited.

"Fear is the best by far," the gardener explained as he paused to stroke the delicate leaves of an overhanging maple. "Unless fanned to destructive extremes, it has a way of tempering society and encouraging it towards a stable, manageable equilibrium. Those who are powerful fear others who hold power as well as the noisome mass of the underclass, while the powerless fear their rulers, each other, criminals, starvation, disease and war. Everyone is checked by fear, everyone fears each other, and, in an ideal state, everyone fears the future. Even in motion, it is a state of relative balance – order again, you see."

Juri's head swayed slightly. There were many things for which her patience was limitless, but philosophy was not one of them. "Why are you telling me all this, Shr-fu?" she gushed tiredly, unable to restrain herself.

The old man ignored her tone and proceeded, "We have arrived, my student, at something of a crossroads. Can you guess why?"

"Um," she played along, "because Zabuza and Gato got killed?"

The tall figure spared her a glance. "Very good, but really Zabuza was of little consequence. Both were useful tools. The very real threat posed by Zabuza kept the Mizukage in line, while Gato – well, he kept everyone else in line."

The girl's eyes widened at the idea. She spun toward him. "You're telling me Gato was a tool?"  
The old man nodded with glacial slowness. "The most dangerous kind – one that thinks itself more important than the garden," he said then shook his head sharply as he remembered frustration. "Ah, I tried to explain it to him…but he was rather headstrong as you are no doubt aware."

Juri turned away and fixed her attention into the depths of her master's pond and the fiery-colored fish that played beneath its placid surface. It always annoyed her when he dropped hints like that about who he was. For years now, she'd been more than content to call him 'Shr-fu' or master. The truth was, she didn't want to know…not for sure. "I suppose somebody will take over for him," she ventured.

"Don't I wish!" crowed the man with surprising emotion. "But, alas, he was suspicious too, and killed off anyone he thought had the desire or ability to succeed him. It was for that reason that he left no reigns to pick up. His whole operation, a vast criminal empire that extended to the borders of our land, he ran from memory. He kept no records. All his plans, the people he knew, the secret places where he kept his money – it's all gone. When he died, his operation died with him."

Juri snorted and stirred the ground absently with her toe. "With so much to lose," she advanced, "he was pretty stupid letting himself get so pissed off about all that bridge bull-crap. There was no reason in the world for him to come here in person."

Her master raised an eyebrow. "Even sages are fools in some ways."

"Shr-fu?" the girl asked. "That bridge would hardly have made a dent in Gato's empire. Even with a thousand bridges, he'd still be more wealthy and powerful than anyone in the Land of Waves."

"He took it as a challenge to him personally."

"Why?"

The old man's head drifted toward her. "Because that's what it was, of course."

The young woman gaped at him then stared. "Tazuna," she muttered in awe. "I knew that guy had some big, brass ones, but I had no idea…"

"Tazuna was only the point of the spear, my dear," the gardener clarified. "He designed the bridge and managed its construction on site, but there were many more parties involved. Bridges are very expensive; so who do you think financed it and paid for all that material and labor? That bridge is made almost entirely of pre-cast elements. They were fabricated from concrete and steel bars in a plant somewhere then brought here over a great distance and assembled so quickly that Gato didn't even know he was being tested until the thing was almost complete."

Juri shook her head. "If it wasn't Tazuna, then who?"

"Enemies, my dear," the man answered, "foreign and domestic."

"Domestic?" the girl repeated, prompted by the inflection of her teacher's voice.

"Oh yes," said the man. "In fact, I'm on quite good terms with some of them even though we differ philosophically."

"But you call them enemies. I take it you're going to stop them."

"It is imperative that we do, for they are possibly the greatest threat the Land of Waves has ever faced."

Juri raised a doubtful eyebrow. "How's that?" she asked.

Her teacher turned to survey his works again. "This garden is beautiful and ordered because it is guided by one vision and one vision only. Think now of what it would look like with two gardeners, then a hundred, then a thousand. That is the sort of chaos my adversaries envision."

The girl stifled a yawn then folded her arms, wishing Shr-fu would finally get the point. Old people were very strange. Young ones were too, she realized, but in very different ways. She hoped that there would never be a day when she'd find religion, politics, philosophy or gardening interesting enough to waste so much breath on.

"Miss Chono," her master barked suddenly in a sharp voice at which Juri snapped to attention. He then paced down what remained of the garden path and exited back onto the old factory's concrete yard. "We have heretofore been useful to each other, yes? I have schooled you in the martial disciplines and you have proven yourself to be a valuable asset on many occasions. There were others I considered developing but they all had connections to other people, places and events that could have been troublesome for me.

"I do not labor under the belief that you have any feelings of personal attachment or loyalty. The paths we've chosen happen to run parallel, that's all, and we both find this arrangement satisfactory.

"But now, why I've bored you with all this talk: I require someone with the skills, the disposition, and above all, the discretion, to act as my factor here. It will, of course, be dangerous, but the rewards, Juri…well, I shan't bore you with any more flights of hyperbole."

A smile worked its way over the student's face. "Sounds fun," replied Juri. "Count me in."

The old man nodded and his lined face crinkled as he grinned. "All that remains…is a test."

The girl frowned, raising eyebrows while shutting eyes. "What's the subject?"

"How well I've trained you," her master stated in an erudite tone then added, "and how well you can survive under adverse conditions."

"Great," Juri droned slowly, suspecting already what was afoot. "When do we start?"

"When do you think?"

The old man backed away with his smile fading from his face, and so Juri had her answer. A series of notes rang in the air, and the girl leaped back as an explosion rocked the ground where she had just stood. Landing lightly, she shook off the concussive effects then sped forward as her master's hands flew together to form seals.

The puddle next to Juri sprang suddenly to life and lashed at her legs with watery tentacles. Stepping adroitly from their reach, she saw the others forming, rising up from the pools and puddles – more of the old man's water-monsters, but there was no time to worry about them now.

The one nearest her surged forward, striking low. Juri rooted herself in a stance, feeling energy course up through her from the earth below, as the water rushed past her legs like a rip-tide. If she lost her balance, she'd be overwhelmed. If she leaped into the air at any time during this fight, she'd never touch the ground again. She'd be swept away immediately, crushed and drown by her master's hideous jutsu.

The first monster curled high over her like a wave then crashed down but was met by the girl's pin-wheeling fists, whose chakra burst it apart into a splattering, watery cascade.

Right in front of Juri, a shadow arose over the cracked concrete which gave her fair warning of the threat from behind. She dropped low and whipped her leg around, then grimaced in pain. Though her attack had broken the new water-monster's advance, she'd found out the hard way that this one had gravel swirling within it – gravel that had bruised and tore the skin at the back of her calf when her leg had swept through it.

Infuriated at having to retreat, Juri shook from the impact as the gravel-infused water-monster slashed at her with tentacles as thick as tree trunks. Its blows rained against the shields of her intercepting palms and forearms, scoring her skin with each strike. If that wasn't bad enough, three others were closing in and were almost upon her: one was pitch black and muddy from the topsoil mixed in with its fluid substance, while two shimmered translucently.

Juri grit her teeth as she blocked and struck in succession, clawed through the monsters' fluid substance, and tried to position one against the other. But these opponents were far from normal, they could flow, change shapes at will, and even pass through each other.

Though none held rank above the others, the gravel-monster lead the assault. It pressed forward, striking like a dozen, intertwining snakes. Juri sidestepped deftly, twisting and turning, ducking and dropping away from where it focused its power until at last she was in position to strike. Its tentacle broke under the force of the upward sweep of her arm, while her clawed palm thudded into its main body and disrupted it with a pulse of chakra. Water sprayed upward and out like a geyser, then rained down in a shower of water and gravel.

Taking its fallen brother's place, the mud-monster now rippled toward her, crashed toward her legs then spat its substance at her eyes. Juri crouched and turned away at the last second as the mud splattered over her back, then slipped aside as the jutsu-created creature charged past.

Sensing an opening, she rushed then at the two clear water-monsters and battered through them with swiping, tiger-clawed hands and pounding forearms. Once beyond them, she pivoted back. Now at least she'd managed to get all her opponents in front of her.

Water streamed down Juri's arms, face and legs; tinged pink and cascading along thinner ripples of red where she'd been wounded. She was tired and gasping for breath, and was starting to realize that her adversaries would last as long as her master's chakra…which would be quite a while. She'd already done an entire morning of tough training even before this test, but despite that she was far from spent.

It occurred to the student that she could attack the old man and maybe break his jutsu, but that was exactly the kind of tactic he'd be ready for and his water-monsters were still too close. Even as it was, the man's ninja-art creations probed her awareness and reactions, rolling forward then away but always inching closer and moving to surround her. Sunlight glittered and gleamed through their undulant bodies, all but the black one which reflected bright on the surface but was entirely opaque.

Accepting her situation, Juri rushed forward, slashed and struck. Her clawed fingers raked water and crashed though a water-monsters shimmering substance. They fell back, yielding before her, then rose up suddenly into whirling vortices. Startled for a moment, she was taken by surprise as the mud-monster sprang through its brethren and crashed over Juri, coating her entirely in mud.

Blinded now and with her movements hindered, she staggered back and tried to wipe the muck from her face. She could feel the monsters crowd in close around her and tried to fend them off with whirling fists and sweeping strikes.

It was no use; the water monsters took turns smashing at her defenses then ripped through her, bowling her over and trapping her in their watery embrace. Her cap drifted off her head and floated away. All she felt was cold and weightlessness. Her lungs burned as she tried to keep her breath, while bubbles leaked out from her tightly pressed lips then floated away along with her life.

Suddenly, her fluid prison burst and she fell to the hard concrete, gasping. Pressing herself up on her hands, she gagged and puked briny spasms of water and snot whose slobbery entrails hung from her nose and mouth.

The old man's shadow passed over her, and she looked up at him defiant to the last. If the last lesson he had to teach her was how to deliver a coup-de-grace, she wanted to see it coming.

The old man looked down at her charitably then winked. "Close enough," her master said simply, then folded his arms and walked away.

* * *

**Toru**

Toru Yamashite walked at a relaxed pace along the village streets, looking around more or less randomly. Every now and again, he showed the shopkeepers, customers and random passers-by a sketch of Haku and asked them if they'd seen anyone like that around recently. Always, there came the same answers – apologetic looks, shrugs of shoulders, shaking of heads, all accompanied by the word 'no'.

The ninja looked down again at the likeness – the face of a long, black-haired, grey-eyed, somewhat girly-looking boy, and wondered if it was even close to the young criminal's real face. There was really no way to tell. What he had had been prepared by a professional artist based on descriptions given by those precious few who'd ever seen Zabuza's apprentice without his counterfeit ANBU mask on. Finding Haku this way, he understood, would be a real long-shot. It would take time that, now that the Mizukage's own personal leg-breaker was out looking for him, Toru did not have.

As the big man searched for his fugitive, he took stock of all the strange faces; the great influx of people the bridge and new construction had brought from near and far.

The effect was startling, even here, blocks away from the bridge. Every store was open and occupied, their owners bent on cleaning, repairing, or at the very least throwing up a fresh coat of paint. There was an energy here, an eagerness the ANBU Pack-Leader hadn't seen before. The sudden plague of enthusiasm bothered him, but he wasn't quite sure why.

Toru asked himself if it was just that it seemed so different from the general malaise with which he was familiar: that singular depression of the human spirit brought on by a succession of civil wars, Zabuza's bloody coup attempt, incompetent political governance, and rampant crime that had characterized the land of his birth for so long.

The man frowned, shook his head as if to clear the thoughts away, then proceeded with what he knew best – his job. In part, this is what he'd been trained for. It was what he did, and he took a kind of comfort in its familiar rhythms.

_Up above the mist-ninja, creeping silently along the sheet metal roofs, a figure watched and waited. His clothing was drab, and blended perfectly with the aged, seamed tin. A mask covered the lower portions of his face, while his gloved hand flexed on the handle of his razor-edged, executioner's sword._

_Knowing he hunted dangerous prey, he waited for the right opportunity to strike for he would only get one chance. The moment would come if he was patient, of this he was certain._

Though Toru made it a point to stick to the cooler, shaded side of the street, the spiking, mid-day heat was starting to wear on him. Sweat dribbled unflatteringly down his forehead, which he wiped with a sleeve that was already moist.

A tea-vendor passed by just then – a man with a huge urn strapped on his bent back. Toru hailed him and bought a cup, then chatted with him and some of his other customers for awhile before he went on his way. The big ninja stepped aside with the other pedestrians as a flatbed truck, piled high with lumber, rattled past.

Continuing on in his quest for anyone who'd seen Haku, Toru presented himself to a few more people, mostly hard-hat wearing construction workers on their way home for lunch, then rested awhile. It surprised him a little at the wide range of ages of people who'd found work -- from men and women he considered old down to kids in their early teens. By all appearances, anyone who could stick a shovel in the ground, move an object from one place to another, or push a broom could get a job.

_The assassin waiting on the eave above shifted positions but held back, deciding to hold-off just a little longer. Experience had taught him that his target was almost in the ideal position, but not quite yet._

Look at him, this great buffoon, _he thought and smiled cruelly. _Walking around without a care in the world, so overconfident. It's hard to believe the Land of Waves' ninja have fallen as far as this, a Pack-Leader who melts in the sun and gets tired just walking around…pathetic!

_The killer's eyes narrowed and he tensed slightly with anticipation as his target scratched himself, looked up in thought then patted his pockets. At last, the unsuspecting mist-ninja fished out a packet of something from his vest then tilted his head back to tap a dash of it into his mouth._

_That instant, the assassin leaped into action. He sprang from the rooftop and hurtled toward his prey._

Toru lowered his head and started to chew, with the calm composure of a sacred cow, as he enjoyed the calming, licorice-like flavor of anise. So relaxed was he, that he didn't even flinch at the shockwave of impact that exploded just immediately behind his broad back. _Ouch_, he thought and made a face as he judged the particular characteristics of the sounds he'd just heard; the sounds of breaking bones and rupturing organs.

_Sacked at the one-yard line,_ Toru summarized to himself,_ what a b'._

Turning around, with his jaw working away in a regular, grinding motion, the Pack-Leader took in the sight of his fellow ANBU, Eiji Tohei, who stood there perpendicular to him in his grey and blue 'urban commando' uniform and rooster zodiac mask that had upon it the swirling, white, red and black abstract of the animal's face, with the four squiggly-lined glyph of the Land of Waves on the forehead. The ninja's legs were bent in a comfortable fighting stance and his right arm was extended into a fist, though not fully so, while his left palm was raised up in a formal position to guard his head.

In front of him, what was left of a man's body lay smashed partway through the wood-sided wall of a store that sold dry goods. The would-be killer was tall, amber-skinned and bald. An abandoned sword, thick and short-bladed, lay on the sidewalk.

"Well, shoot," said Toru with a trace of disappointment in his voice as he put his packet of anise seeds back into a pocket, "that ain't Haku at all."

Eiji, shaken from a trance brought on by immense satisfaction, pulled the mask from his face and looked down. "Guess not," he muttered sourly then let his fist drop. He darted a glance at Toru then poked him in his round stomach. "Hey, is that really you? You didn't use a water-clone like usual?"

The man made a face and shook his head. "Nah," he replied dismissively. "The truly discerning killer can tell the difference. Besides, you had my back."

"Yeah." Eiji suppressed a smile then looked back to the hole in the wall. "Sorry, Boss," he muttered guiltily, "I should've eased up, then we could've questioned him."

Toru's eyes rose. "No big deal. We were expecting Haku, after all. But that's a good thought," he offered with a grin. "Something like that never used to occur to you." The two ninjas both looked at the body. "It'd be a help too if you developed a technique other than that 'bum's-rush jutsu'."

Eiji winced rebelliously.

The actual name of the move the young ninja had just used to intercept Toru's assassin was called 'pao chuan' or cannon fist, and was a basic level technique. The only remarkable thing about it was its essential simplicity. To execute it, you diverted a wave of chakra to your feet in order to explode suddenly at your opponent, while sending another portion of chakra into your fist an instant later. The move was effective to the extreme, and allowed even novice genin to take down opponents many times more powerful as long as they were taken off-guard.

The inherent weakness was that it could be countered decisively by a cunning opponent – all it took was a simple sidestep and the attacker would be left completely exposed.

"Why do you always get on me about that?" asked Eiji, annoyed and defensive. "It works, doesn't it?"

The Pack-Leader cocked an eyebrow at him, then sighed. It was hard to argue with results and they both knew it.

Eiji had elevated this basic attack to a whole new level by virtue of his flawless execution. He could explode into it with a fearless, total commitment unlike any Toru had ever seen before. Most of all, Eiji could execute it without the faintest indication – no preparatory muscle tension, not even a telegraphing flash of his eyes to give his intention away.

"Yes it does," Toru agreed, but with a frown. "It's so beautiful I'd wear it as a hat if I could. And I know your instructors at the academy filled your head with how great you are because of that, but they weren't thinking long-term."

"What do you mean?" asked Eiji with a suspicious edge in his voice, but underneath lay a genuine curiosity.

Toru suppressed a paternal smile. It had taken the young hunter-ninja a long time to allow for the possibility that his fat, old pack-leader might actually know something of use to him. "I mean," explained Toru, "that it won't take long for people to figure you out if one technique is all you're good at."

Before the young man's contrary nature could kick in, Toru continued, "At this point in your career you need to be passingly-familiar with dozens of different jutsu, but you should have at least three that you're really, really good at. 'Cause really, if you're in a fight and you try three totally different things, and none of them work…then you need to bail out and quick, because you're about to get you're ass kicked and maybe killed."

The Pack-Leader straightened as he considered what else he could say to make his point. "Right now, cannon-fist will take out probably ninety-percent of everyone you'll ever fight. But eventually, and much sooner than you think, you'll run into one of those other ten-percent types, and they'll rip your guts out…literally!"

Eiji's eyes narrowed as he tilted his head with a cocky smile. "Come on, Chief," he replied in a contrary drawl. "I've been in so many fights, I've lost count; and nobody's beat me yet. No one's even come close."

The big ninja grumbled then pushed his thick glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "Kid," Toru began disparagingly, "if you've won a hundred fights, then you beat a hundred bums, big deal. Nobody's going to put a plaque up on the wall for you just for that. You got cannon-fist working so well in part because you're young and stupid. You've still got speed on your side and you haven't learned what the consequences are for being a one-trick pony in this business." The Pack-Leader checked his tone, it was coming out all nasty and that's not what he wanted. He could see the resentment rising in his young ninja. It was clear on his face.

Part of what had always been a problem for Toru when dealing with Eiji was that the ANBU was young, handsome, lithe and naturally-talented, like he'd never been. Envy brought out his bad side sometimes.

"Eiji," the Pack-Leader managed in a conciliatory voice then looked at him earnestly, "as far as your raw potential goes, the sky's the limit. Your instructors trained you to be a killer, and you're very good at that. I'm trying to train you to be more. You could a Pack-Leader yourself one day, a magistrate, a husband, a father; hell, maybe even Mizukage." He stopped himself there, knowing there was no call for wild exaggerations, then explained gravely: "You can't just rely on what you do well right now. You do have to push yourself farther. You do have to take risks, but you've also got to learn. And you've got to live long enough to get there."

The young man stared at him with an expression that made Toru swallow hard. After so many speeches, lessons and arguments that had gone through one ear and out the other, what he'd said just then had actually seemed to sink in.

Eiji's expression condensed in thought as if, maybe, just maybe, his view of the road ahead had gotten clearer. A clever grin chased his apparently introspective moment away. "You don't really think I could be Mizukage?" he asked with a snicker.

"Well," Toru mumbled, "keep in mind -- the one we got now hasn't exactly set the bar real high."

The two ninja shared a conspiratorial laugh while a pale and wide-eyed shopkeeper, a man in a clean, yellow, button-down shirt and tan trousers, appeared from the doorway behind them and stared speechlessly at the hole in his wall which was occupied by a mangled corpse.

"Ok, Boss," said Eiji awkwardly, who then cocked his head toward the broken assassin and changed the subject. "So who's this asshole?"

"Hell if I know," Toru replied, then stroked his stubbled chin thoughtfully. "But I kind of got into a fight with some bandits yesterday, so maybe I killed a couple fewer than I should have."

The young man looked up, indignant at the idea that there should be a fight anywhere in the world that he hadn't participated in. "You didn't tell us."

"Must have slipped my mind," Toru quipped distantly then went on, "Anyhoo, I was really hoping we could draw Haku into playing offense." He crossed his thick arms then shook his head as he regarded his assassin's body. "That's what Zabuza would have done anyway – turned things around so that his hunters ended up getting hunted. That bastard was _all about_ offense. I'd have guessed Haku would have done the same thing."

An uncomfortable look crossed Eiji's face. "Boss," he ventured hesitantly, "do you think…do you think that Zabuza and Haku really were --," Eiji broke off sharply before adding direly, "you know."

"Lovers?" Toru continued for him. "That's the rumor."

"That's just…that's just…vile!" Eiji's face congealed in a look of disgust. "Is it true?"

The Pack-Leader cocked an eyebrow at him. "I have no earthly idea," he stated. "People love to talk, especially if it's about stuff they know nothing about. Who knows if any of it's true. Having said that, well, yeah, I still tend to think if there's smoke, there's fire, but at least I'll admit that I don't know for sure. Maybe you can ask Haku yourself when we catch him."

The young ANBU shook his head. "Do you think he's still around? I mean, if it was me, I'd have left out."

Toru nodded. "Aya's water-spirit jutsu says he still around, maybe lying low figuring we'd figure it the way you just did."

"You don't think she's wrong?"

"She never has been before," the heavy-set man asserted. "Now has she?"

Eiji shook his head, then made a painful admission: "She's got a lot of great jutsus."

"That's the value of teamwork, Eiji," offered Toru. "Our strengths are hers and hers are ours."

Behind them, the shopkeeper muttered sadly, "My…my store!"

"Huh?" asked Toru who turned his head with an expression of indifference. "Oh, right…sorry about that, captain."

The man turned then toward Eiji who turned him away with a single glance – a nuanced expression that said, 'I'm young, callus, and my temper's on a hair-trigger, so don't even try me.'

"But…but," the shopkeeper sputtered at Toru who, despite his bulk, seemed the more approachable of the two, "what about my wall?"

The ninja shrugged then gestured at the body. "Ask him," he said. "He's the one who broke it."

Eiji gave a lopsided grin then shook his head until he tensed, suddenly alert. Leaning toward his Chief, he whispered: "You know somebody's eyeballin' us, right?"

Toru nodded. "Yup," he affirmed, "the woman and her two bodyguards. I saw em'. Be cool, I don't think they're trouble."

Following Toru's lead, Eiji turned with him toward the three that waited for them. The one in charge was a short woman with tightly braided hair, and indigo-dark skin. She wore blousy, pleated pants gathered at her narrow waist with a sash and a loose shirt dyed with dense patterns. Her guards seemed capable, but unremarkable, and were plainly not looking forward to the upcoming encounter.

The woman gave the ANBU a disarming smile then lead the way forward and bowed politely.

"Mr. Yamashite," she greeted in a crisp accent, "and Mr. Tohei. I hope I'm not intruding. My name is Keiya Okore, and I wish only to express my gratitude for the way you dealt with that gang of thieves who killed and robbed my workmen."

The ANBU returned her bow, somewhat perplexed that she knew both their names. The woman was quite strikingly unlike anyone else they'd ever seen before. Her eyes were piercing, pale and fierce, her cheekbones high and sharp.

"No big deal, Ms. Okore," Toru replied. "I was passing just passing by anyway."

She looked at him firmly. "For a man in possession of such skills, I'm sure dealing with two-dozen armed men is no great matter. But your arrival just now, I think, is a great blessing, yes?"

The Pack-Leader's eyes rose. "Uh, well, undoubtedly a mixed-blessing at best," he allowed with a lopsided smile. "But I appreciate your compliment."

The store-keeper, who'd been waiting with nervous impatience all this time and working up his courage, started to interrupt, but Keiya headed him off. "Sir," she said to him, "I will send some men down here at once to repair this mess. It doesn't look like it should take too long."

The man looked at her mutely, bowed, then retired, figuring that was the best offer he was going to get and that to say anything more could only make matters worse.

The woman turned back to the mist-ninja and offered suddenly, "Would you two do me the favor of joining me for lunch?"

Toru and Eiji exchanged puzzled looks. As a rule, people were never happy to see the ANBU, let alone invite them out.

The Pack-Leader shrugged uncertainly then, having no reason to refuse, replied: "I could eat."

Eiji nodded. "Sounds good to me."

The strange woman turned to her guards. "I believe I shall be quite safe in the company of these men," she announced with a broad, white smile. "So please, you may take the rest of the day off."

The two guards startled at this, but only for a moment, then bowed and stepped aside as Keiya Okore fell in between the two ninja-hunters and lead the way, taking them back toward the bridge.

Toru chuckled lightly and shook his head in slight surprise. "You give your trust very easily, Ms. Okore," he asserted capriciously.

"It is my woman's intuition," she explained with understated boldness. "It's gotten me this far, though I confess that it is often wrong."

"Huh, well, I suppose I can't argue with you."

Her eyes slid up toward his face. "But you must employ something similar in your line of work as well, yes?"

"That'd be nice," the big man said thoughtfully, then joked, "but it's mostly dumb luck."

Keiya gave him a sly grin. "Really, Mr. Yamashite, you are too modest. Men such as yourself who have risen to positions of importance are undoubtedly possessed of great skill, but also of great wisdom."

"I am merely a humble servant of our Mizukage and nothing more, I assure you," replied Toru flatly while Eiji couldn't help but grin. "But tell me, Ms. Okore, what brings you to the Land of Waves?"

As they walked, Keiya Okore looked up over the rickety walls of the surrounding buildings, past the cracked and weather-punished plank walls and metal roofs to where cranes towered. Their mighty arms lifted beams and great concrete sections from the ground and carried them deftly though the air as if they weighed no more than feathers. Even from a block away they could hear the groan of engines, and see the great clouds of dust that rose up from the excavations. The sights and sounds brought a charming smile to the woman's face.

"That's quite a long story," she said in answer to her escort's question. "But, in short, I am here to monitor the progress of all these new buildings."

"Monitor?" Toru repeated then asked, "Really, who for?"

"A group of investors," she explained. "I don't mean to skirt your question, but they number several hundreds. I know in person many of them, but don't think their names would mean anything to you."

The three passed from the village streets into a construction safety tunnel framed by two-by-sixes and sheathed in thick plywood, which lead them like a cattle-chute to a stretch of dusty concrete that had once been a road. One side of it faced the back walls of stores that fronted the street beyond while orange plastic fencing separated the public way from teams of workmen and machinery.

Beyond a field of flat ground that spouted stakes, string lines, and small, colorful flags, arose a new city. Cranes swiveled entire sections of walls into place, some three stories high, with openings for windows, and face brick already attached.

Toru almost fell as he turned his head to stare, with his mouth hanging agape. A chill passed through him and shook him to the core of his being as if he was in the presence of something greatly malevolent. He clenched his jaw, caught somewhere between anger and fear, and still unable to explain to himself why he felt this way. Him of all people!

As an ANBU pack leader raised up and trained in the old-school days, before Zabuza Momochi's blood-drenched 'graduation party' prompted even the normally thick-headed Mizukage and his Machiavellian Council of Elders to reform the ninja academy's curriculum, he'd had to kill one of his own classmates in order to progress. Since then he'd seen just about every terrible way there was to kill a person, and there was a lot more than a few drops of blood on his hands too.

So what was it about this place that filled him with such dread? No one was dying here, they were working. This was not destruction, but creation!

The Pack-Leader turned surreptitiously toward his young protégé, Eiji, and saw that he was similarly entranced, only his face was not filled with doubts but wonder.

"Where are they from, these investors?" Toru said sharply to his guide, but his words went unheard over the growling back-hoe that was clawing a trench in the ground.

"Oh, all over the world!" replied Keiya loudly after Toru repeated himself. "Some are right here in the Land of Waves, others are so far distant that they only know of these projects from their written descriptions, my reports, and the bills we give them to pay." Their guide grinned and brought a hand to her cheek in an expression of amusement.

"Hey," piped Eiji excitedly. "This is really amazing! I can't believe you can build buildings so fast. I mean, how do you manage all this equipment, all these men, all this….this stuff!?"

"Oh indeed!" agreed Keiya, sharing the young man's enthusiasm. "It was quite an undertaking to bring all you see together. The actual designs are years old, but the plain truth is we hadn't planned on mobilizing so soon. We'd all thought that we'd have to wait much longer, years more maybe, for the right conditions to fall into place."

"Hmm," Toru put forth, "you mean, like Gato getting killed?"

Keiya stopped amidst the dust and noise, then frowned. "That was quite unexpected and tragic the way that occurred, Mr. Yamashite. It is regrettable that Gato should be murdered by some criminal, even though he was a wicked man."

"Zabuza Momochi," Toru clarified, "that was his name. And he was a lot more than just your regular criminal."

Keiya nodded, grateful for the information. "It is as you say. And yet, as you have implied, Gato's sudden departure was indeed the main reason for us to proceed with such dispatch."

The woman and her ninja companions turned a corner and headed up a crowded alley of sorts lined with food vendors, stalls, carts, and hastily thrown up shack-restaurants. Over the odors of dust and engine fumes spiked the more appealing scents of baked bread, stewing spices and roasting meat.

"These places are new and I have not sampled them all," Keiya advised. "Please, choose whichever you would like. As you see, there are many that serve fish, baked, grilled or raw, but there is also ramen, pho, barbeque…" Her voice trailed off as she gestured for her guests to look around.

Toru surveyed the choices, taking into account the bannered advertisements, the apparent cleanliness of the establishments, and the expressions of those coming and going. Ultimately, he settled on what he felt like. "Barbecue's just fine with me."

"Splendid choice," the small, dark woman allowed with a bright smile.

The crowds of sweating, dirt-crusted workmen made way for the three as they approached a long stall and ducked in under its high, ornamented drapery. The muddled sounds of laughter and conversation filled the air inside, as men crowded the counter and huddled around the rough, wood, picnic-type tables, eating their meals of sliced meat and beans served on wax-paper.

"Miss Okore!" a voice cried. A man in jeans, boots, and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up rose from one of the tables and waved them over.

"Oh, no, Dokonosuke," the woman said. "Please, finish your meal. We can wait a few minutes."

"That ok," said the man as he wadded up his wax-paper over the little bits of food that remained, while his two similarly-dressed companions cleared their 'plates' away and wiped off the table with a paper towel. "We're done anyway. Hey!" he bellowed to the cook over the din of the crowd then held up three fingers. "I ordered you all a plate, hope you enjoy!"

The two mist-ninja let Keiya seat herself first, then slipped into the bench across the table from her. For a moment they stared at each other awkwardly.

"So," Toru ventured to break the silence. "How do you like it here so far?"

The woman, sitting straight with her hands cupped in front of her, paused in thought then smiled. "It is very beautiful in your Land of Waves, where the land meets the sea and the sea meets the sky. The people are friendly, strong, and very anxious and willing to work hard. But," she added seriously, "there is no law here."

Toru smirked in spite of himself. "You came all this way, invested all that time and money, and you didn't know that?"

Keiya looked aside, grim and slightly embarrassed. "Of course, we understood that things would be difficult," she mused as if to herself. "And yet, it is still surprising at how brazen and violent your gangs are."

One of the cooks waved his arm in their direction. Toru looked then prodded Eiji who rose and brought back their meals. The Pack-Leader stared at him again until he went back and got the drinks, flatware and napkins. The lunch special was five slices of sauced meat, stewed beans and a small pickle. The method of operation here was not to eat with chopsticks but with knife and fork.

"You should have seen it during the civil war," Toru related as he started to eat, then remarked blandly: "You're lucky you caught us at a quiet moment."

"The civil wars," Eiji chimed in, "that's when all the ninja clans the rival lords hired went at it with their kekkei-genkai and whatnot?"

Toru nodded as he took a big bite, then another, then a big forkful of beans.

"Oh, dear," said Keiya as she looked down at her food seriously. "This is brisket," she reported then looked up. "Were you expecting pork?"

Though the man tried to contain his laughter, his shoulders shook. Toru looked at her and mugged a grin. "Do I really look that picky?"

The woman blinked then gave him a coy smile. "I suppose you will make do," she ventured with diplomatic smoothness.

The three fell silent for the most part as they ate their meals. The beef was slightly spicy and satisfying, while the beans were sweet.

The small crowd of hard-hat carrying workers by the entrance parted for a man who entered then started to look around with a sense of urgency. He was tall and mostly bald, with a ring of brown hair clinging to the sides of his head. What made him stand out was that he was abnormally clean and dressed conspicuously in a green golf shirt and striped trousers. His ruddy complexioned face fell on them and his expression lit.

"Ah! Keiya!" he greeted cheerily then rushed toward their table and bowed. "So, these are the guys, huh?" he said as a wide, brilliant smile bloomed over his face. Keiya startled then glanced up at him disconcertedly. "Are they on board yet?"

Toru leaned back with exaggerated interest. "On board yet for what?"

"I was just getting to that part, Yoichiro," Keiya said to the man then turned back to the two ninja. "Mr. Toru Yamashite, Mr. Eiji Tohei," she began, "may I present my colleague, Mr. Yoichiro Saito."

"Oh, I am sorry," the newcomer offered as he squeezed in beside Keiya, "I didn't mean to interrupt. May I?"

Keiya shrugged as if to say, 'you might as well.'

"Toru, Eiji," he began animatedly. "We've got us an incredible thing going on here, and all we need to really make it happen is a little security. That's where we want you two to come in."

A wince flickered over Keiya's face.

"I see," the Pack-Leader ventured. "So…I guess…we keep the bad guys off your backs and let this new, what do you call it, development just keep on rolling on?"

"Exactly!" said Yoichiro. "And you, your team, heck, anyone you want to bring along, will be very well compensated. After all," he said with an easy laugh, "we need you."

Toru nodded, but the grin on his face was not at all accommodating. "In case you didn't notice," he pointed out, "we've already got jobs."

Yoichiro blinked. "I don't think there's a conflict here --."

"Let me explain," said Toru, who held up his beefy palm, "my only duty is to the Mizukage, the Hidden Mist Village and the Land of Waves. My mission, as it stands, is to track down and kill ninjas who've strayed off the reservation. What I did yesterday to those bandits, Ms. Okore, Mr. Saito, wasn't part of that. They pissed me off, that's all." He leveled his gaze. "For what you want, you're talking to the wrong guys."

"Aw, come on," pleaded Yoichiro in disbelief, "it's a win-win situation."

Toru spat out a laugh. "I'm not so sure."

"What do you mean?"

The big mist-ninja smirked. "Who really wins here?" he asked rhetorically. "You and Ms. Okore -- sure; your investors -- definitely. Me and the people of this village – I doubt it." He looked back and forth between them, his thick-lensed glasses seeming to make his lusterless eyes big and perceptive. "What I see is a bunch of grifters gambling with other people's cash. You come in here to my country after we've already been through so much, and you got your big plans with everything all figured out, but really you don't know a damn thing. This is all some kind of game to you; an economic experiment with the Land of Waves as your lab rat.

"I'm willing to bet that the thing that keeps all this going is that the people you talked into paying for it believe it's a sure thing." He leaned back and gestured. "I guess if people start getting killed around here, and your little operation turns into yet another Land of Waves bloodbath, then the whole deal's screwed. Am I close? Hell, I'm willing to bet that you've already told your people that you've got mist-ninja protecting you."

Keiya listened carefully and watched Toru as he spoke, tilting her head slightly.

"There's about two things that could happen here," the ANBU continued. "One, you guys get this place looking all pretty then sell it off to some idiot who can't see past the picture. You guys make your money and all your investors get rich. Two, is that the whole place goes down in flames and everybody looses their ass. But that's probably okay too since, I'm sure, everything's insured for twice what it's worth as a hedge. "Either way, you all will be long gone by then. Either way, it's people like me who get to clean up the mess you made."

Toru stared at Yoichiro, but the dapper businessman was cowed into silence. The Pack-Leader turned toward Keiya who chose out of discretion not to speak.

"Come on, Eiji," said Toru who rose, leaving his meal unfinished, "We've got stuff to do."

Eiji wiped his mouth then followed his leader out, but offered along the way: "Thanks for lunch, Ma'am. It was good."

The crowds outside had started to thin, being that many had returned to their work, and some of the stalls were closing down or already making preparations for dinner. Boxes of produce arrived, brought by wagons, trucks or men on foot, while the day's garbage was being bagged up and carried out.

The look on Toru's face was more than enough to make the porters and remaining workmen veer a wide path around the two ninja as they walked.

"You ok, Boss?" Eiji inquired in a tone that, for him, was quite tactful.

"Not really," said Toru.

The young ninja frowned. "You don't think any of this will work out?"

The Pack-Leader glanced down at him. "Given our history," he started bleakly, "it seems pretty f'ing unlikely."

A voice called after them -- shrill but commanding. Eiji and Toru turned to find Keiya Okore, who ran to catch them.

"Yes, Ms. Okore?" said Toru impatiently.

The woman straightened as she gathered her breath. "You were not entirely wrong in what you said," she admitted. "There are many who have taken part in this venture only because they expect profit. And yes, the risk involved has not been put as plainly to them as it might have been." The ninja grinned knowingly, but Keiya hadn't finished. "But you were not entirely right either. There are many also who have put their money at risk because they believe that a series of projects like this which lay the infrastructure for growth can make things better in a place that, as you say, has gone through so much."

The man sighed thoughtfully as he met her eyes. "I'd like to believe you, Ms. Okore," he offered with a vestige of courtesy. "But you're a bull in a very dangerous china shop. You've come here with all these men despite the Land of Waves reputation, and you just don't --." Toru stopped himself, then rubbed his bristly cheek. "Look, you threw a lot of praise and flattery at me when you were trying to get what you wanted. Maybe you actually believe I'm some kind of important guy; some kind of tough guy who can protect you, but I'm not. I'm just a chess piece on the board, Ma'am. On a good day, I'm a rook, maybe even a knight, but I'm not one of the guys who move the pieces."

Toru looked at the scope of the works this woman commanded then turned back to her in dismay. "You've…you've managed to do a hell of lot, but the only reason is that you did it fast before anyone could really figure out what was happening. But I'll tell you something," he intoned authoritatively and leveled a finger at her, "when the powers that be, the people who really make things happen around here, finally notice you, they'll crush you and all of this out like a cigarette."

Keiya Okore met his gaze un-phased. "You speak plainly and from the heart, Mr. Yamashite," said the woman. "That is a rare quality. I think you are a good man, and so we should talk more about all this later…and Mr. Saito's offer."

"Ma'am," sputtered Toru. "Maybe you didn't understand: I just told you 'no', and I won't change my mind."

Keiya smiled and nodded agreeably. "And I heard you. It's a normal part of the negotiation process."

"Oh, is that right?" said the Pack-Leader who stared in goggle-eyed disbelief.

"Indeed!" the woman piped. "And I intend to assure you of our intentions and that we not as lacking in representation here as you might think." A smile crossed her lips as she bowed. "Good day to you, Mr. Yamashite, and you also, Mr. Tohei."

* * *

OMG! I knew I this was a long damn chapter, but I really lost track of just HOW long!!! Whoever's reading this, I'm sorry I took so long AND gave you something this long and plot-heavy. Anyway, let me know what you think. I didn't edit quite as thoroughly as I'm used to, so tell me if I messed up and/or if I lost you. Thanks!

--Joe, aka, Jonohex


	6. Chapter 6

_Hi again, readers. I tried not to take so long with the new chapter this time, AND I tried to keep it short, or at least short for ME ,_

_If you're still with me after Chapter 5, I've got to thank you for your unbelievable patience. As always, your reviews, comments, or even if you just want to say 'hi' are very much appreciated._

_I hate to give away stuff, aka, spoiler here and not just let you read it and find out for yourself, but there's some violence toward the end. I don't consider it extreme by my standards, but you might, and so I'm warning you in advance._

_That said, I hope you enjoy Chapter 6._

* * *

**Haku**

Sitting alone in the shade, Haku rested, with head down and arms draped over his knees. His torn, white t-shirt and frayed khakis, both intended to house Mari's brother Jimon's much larger frame, were layered by grimy streaks and splotches of paint. Sweat poured down his forehead, but the fugitive had long ceased bothering to wipe it away.

A sudden, sharp creak drew an attentive glance from his calm, grey eyes. This house, on whose second floor balcony Haku sheltered, was slated for demolition. In fact, the bulldozer had just started to push on its rickety walls when the shouts announcing lunch break went out. The crew had cut the engine right there and rushed away, leaving the edifice still standing though at a precarious angle. It had turned out to be good place for the fugitive to be alone and think, being that no one was likely to intrude on him here.

All in all, his first week of 'real' work had gone tolerably well. Getting the job had been the easy part. There were dozens of companies here, all desperate to put a tool in the hand of anyone who cared to take it, and no one questioned his newly-arrived-at pseudonym, Hiroo Okame.

The teenager frowned and blew out a breath as a twinge crept across his back and shoulders. _I can't believe I'm so sore,_ he thought as he blew out a weary breath. Nothing he'd done seemed anywhere near as arduous as the training regimen Zabuza had put him through. But the kind of labor he was doing here, from the cool, pre-dawn hours until the heat of mid-afternoon, was hard, draining and, above all, repetitive.

Haku hung his head in melancholy reflection then shifted to a more comfortable position.

_Well, just look at you, Haku,_ he heard his master's voice issue coldly from the chasms of his mind, as chilling and laced with inherent menace as a tiger's growl. _Or is it, Hiroo now?_ The young man pondered but did not respond. _Can that really be my disciple,_ the voice continued acidly in its prosecution,_ my shinobi, the weapon in my hand, trading hours of mindless toil for a few miserable coins like the rest of those pathetic sheep?_

The ninja answered himself calmly,_ What would you have me do?_

_What I trained you to do, _the basal voice insisted, _what you were put on this earth to do; what the ninja blood that flows in your veins demands you do! You failed me, Haku. Now you must take up my cause._

Haku shrugged absently. _Ok_, he decided finally and brought the imaginary conversation to a close, _that last part was a bit much._

Was that really what Zabuza Momochi would have to say to him, the young man wondered? He had no clue; no earthly idea. The notion that anyone would be able to kill the Demon of the Hidden Mist, that the man could even _be_ killed, had seemed so ludicrous for so long that all the 'what-ifs' that suddenly seemed so relevant had never come up.

Haku grimaced, then grit his teeth as he had so many times since his master's death. His knuckles rattled against the deck, and again the ninja asked himself the painful and pointless question: _Where did it all go wrong?_

The question was pointless because he already knew the answer. Though he'd often pointed to his own failings, such as not killing Tazuna's escorts, Naruto Uzumaki or Sasuke Uchiha when he'd had ample opportunities, it seemed clear now that those events were only distributaries from a much larger river.

_It was the contract with Gato, _Haku concluded and nodded certainly, _that was it. The moment Zabuza lowered himself to killing a man for money, he'd ceased to be a revolutionary. He no longer followed his dream. He'd become instead a common killer._

The lone ninja bit his lip at the thought. He didn't want that to be true. For hours at a time he'd crafted different explanations for Zabuza's downfall, many of them winding and elaborate. All were infinitely preferable to the one he could not shake from his mind as being the truth, even the ones where he, Haku, bore all the responsibility.

_There's nothing else that explains it,_ Haku went on, somewhat masochistically. _Zabuza's dream of overthrowing the Mizukage was broken on reality's wheel. He'd tried his best…and failed, and paid a terrible price for that – he lost part of his spirit. That's why he agreed to kill Tazuna in the first place and what set us on an intersecting path with those leaf-ninja._

Haku looked up grimly. _That's why Kakashi was able to beat Zabuza, the Demon of the Hidden Mist, one of the Seven Legendary Swordsmen, so easily. In the full flower of his intensity…it could never have happened._

Haku shook his head, as if denying the truth would make it otherwise.

At some level both he and Zabuza had known it even before their encounter with Kakashi's team, though Haku hadn't been aware of it clearly enough to express. Even if he had been, he'd been so accustomed to following Zabuza's direction that he still wouldn't have said a word.

_So yes, here I am in the Land of Waves, living in a basement, with a fake name, on the run from the ANBU. And I have a job, _Haku summarized glumly, fast-forwarding to today. _I'm working to pay for my food and shelter. Does that really make me a sheep? _He knew very well what his departed master would have to say about that. The man had made his sentiments quite clear over their time of their association.

_Or not?_ He heard again the opinion of his host, Mr. Tezuka, who extolled a far different view. To this man, who'd worked every day since he was very young, work was the measure of a man and the fountainhead from which all virtues poured.

A billow of dust drifted past him on the wind. Over the nearby sounds of workmen talking and joking, tinny strains of music echoed from a radio one of them had brought.

_Normal people…_Haku thought and frowned. He'd never in his life spent so much time with normal people. In Zabuza's camp, everyone was a trained killer. Knowing that, everyone respected the value of silence, manners, and giving everyone else their space. There, no one ever questioned his feminine looks or even his preference for girls' clothes – one, it was none of their business; two, it went unsaid that even asking could earn you a senbon in the neck!

_And who wants that?_

With few exceptions, normal people, Haku mused, were loud, unmannered, undisciplined, selfish, disputatious…

Thankfully, he was interrupted.

Right on time, the sounds of calling voices rang out. Haku rose and looked out then almost, _almost_, jumped over the railing but stopped himself just in time. It wouldn't do at all if somebody saw him, and so he made his way down the rickety stairs instead.

From all over the city, it seemed like, the lunches began to arrive – brought by friends and relatives, mostly the very old or the very young, on foot or bicycle. Haku jostled and elbowed his way to the curb along with all the rest of the impatient, sweaty and hungry workmen who were too poor to dine in one of the restaurants or stalls that had sprung up, then waited in the muttering throng for Chuuya.

One after the other, the people around him stepped forward to greet whoever it was, then took their box or bag. Sometimes it was just a quick, businesslike hand-off, other times a tearful embrace as if the two hadn't seen each other in ages.

At last Haku's searching eyes caught a glimpse of the youngest of the Tezuka brothers as the kid wrestled through the crowds, bearing a loaded backpack. He smiled at once at the sight of the ungainly, large-headed boy, but noted that he seemed distressed.

The young ninja pressed forward and Chuuya looked up at him miserably. His young brow furrowed as his lips started to tremble.

"What's wrong, Chuuya?" asked Haku tenderly as he brushed a strand of dull black hair from boy's watering eyes then took his shoulder in a reassuring grasp.

"Master, I…um," blurted Chuuya. "You know that form you taught me? I…I think I've been doing it wrong!"

Haku looked at him then steered Chuuya to a spot a few paces away where the crowd had thinned and they could talk easier.

Of course he'd warned the boy in no uncertain terms that practicing the chakra-developing movements of The Eight-Section Brocade improperly could have serious consequences. 'Chakra regulates the proper function of your organs,' Haku had explained one evening when they'd talked. 'So if you throw the flow of your internal energy off, you can make yourself very sick, cause an arm or eye to swell up'. Or a testicle too, for that matter, though Haku hadn't mentioned that!

"Tell me what happened," the slender teen asked in a tone that was deliberately mild even by his standards.

"M-m-my hands," Chuuya stammered fearfully and held them up. "Th-they started to feel funny, all tingly…and hot!"

Haku gave him a relieved smirk and forced himself not to chuckle. "Did they feel light?" he asked. "Like two balloons that would float away if you let them."

Chuuya nodded anxiously. "Uh-huh!"

The ninja's face bloomed as he smiled. "That's good," he explained. "It means you're doing it right."

"It does?" the boy piped brightly. "Really, Master?!" Chuuya wiped his eyes, but still seemed unconvinced deep down. He'd invested a lot of energy into being upset, and it would take more than a mere couple of sentences to soothe his mood.

Haku nodded and smiled calmly. "Keep at it and, in time, that feeling will spread through your whole body, then --," he broke off abruptly_. Then…what?_ the renegade ninja asked himself. _You'll show him how to use the power of his chakra to leap through the trees, or run unimpeded by gravity? You'll teach him to fight…teach him jutsu?"_

The teen looked into the child's wide-eyed face as he thought about the implications. _What are you going to do, make a shinobi out of him?_

"Well," added Haku at last, "just keep at it, but don't overdue it." He frowned pensively. "Oh, and please don't call me 'Master'. As you can guess, I'm trying to keep a low-profile and besides, I'm far from being one."

Chuuya's brow rose as he ventured, "Sensei?"

Haku rolled his eyes. "That's even worse. Just call me Hiroo," said the fugitive.

Chuuya seemed dissatisfied, but accepted the judgment just the same. "Hiroo?" he asked.

"Yes, Chuuya."

"I thought a lot about what you told me," he said, "but I still want to be a ninja…more than anything."

The news, though predictable, hit Haku hard – a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Chuuya's simple statement seemed to make time skid to a stop, and in that moment Haku saw the path he himself once walked – a path that so often set him at odds with his own gentler nature. Haku saw the dozens of mist and renegade ninja that he'd killed with senbon or jutsu, the many hundreds Zabuza had chopped apart with his zanbato, and then imagined the thousands killed over the course of countless civil wars, including his own unknown ancestors whose blood and genetic powers he'd inherited. "Is that so?" Haku rasped, stunned and mortified.

"Yeah!" chimed the boy with glorious certainly. "But I wanna be one like my dad talked about – one he doesn't think exists." Haku shook his head quizzically, at which Chuuya declared: "I'm gonna travel all over the land doing good deeds, rescuing kittens from trees, and beating up bad guys!"

Haku's mouth dropped open. "I --," he began, and immediately felt bad. He saw the Naruto-like passion in the boy's wide, dark eyes. Chuuya craved encouragement, which he would never get from any of his brothers on anything, and which Haku couldn't give now about this. "I won't stand in your way if that's really…if that's your dream," he stated bluntly, "but I pray you'll reconsider. A shinobi's life is not what you think it is, no matter how noble your intentions."

Not knowing what to say and clearly disappointed, the youngest of the Tezukas frowned, unlimbered his backpack then handed Haku his bag. "Mari said you should have this one," he mumbled with heartbreaking dolefulness.

"Thanks, Chuuya," said Haku cheerily, trying to raise the boy's spirits but knowing it was inadequate, "I'll see you at home."

Even after he'd turned away and found a spot in the shade to eat, Haku's thoughts were still on the boy…his 'student.' When he'd taught Chuuya The Eight Section Brocade, he'd had no idea he'd progress this far in so short a time. He'd been so sure that the boy would lose interest in the form's exacting but un-exciting motions.

On one hand, it made sense to Haku: Chuuya's father, brothers and sister worked all day; his mother had two babies to tend and a house to keep together. Undoubtedly, after he was done with a few lessons from Mrs. Tezuka's home-schooling, he was free to train all the rest of the day. On the other hand, no one was forcing or even encouraging him to practice. And Chuuya would have had to push himself hard every day for hours to feel the form's effects so soon even if he were a prodigy.

Haku bit into the first of his dozen, seaweed-wrapped, rice balls and was pleasantly surprised to find meat inside. _Mari must have made my lunch today,_ he thought as a smile lit his face and a warm feeling settled within him. Conflicted emotions then took hold as he thought of the girl. _It seems like I'm always making her mad, even when I don't mean to_. His grey eyes lifted thoughtfully as he revised his thesis: _especially when I don't mean to._

_Yet she still treats me much better than any of her brothers._ The young ninja wolfed down another rice ball and considered: _I'll bet they didn't get any meat at all!_ For whatever reason, the idea stuck him as so deliciously funny that he chuckled until his stomach hurt.

Of course he doubted that had much to do with his 'sparkling' personality so much as the general boorishness of Mari's brothers, who were not at all gentle with her, thought nothing of shouldering him aside, stealing food from his plate while he was eating, or farting as they walked by him which, Mari had explained, was a 'move' called a 'crop-duster,' and it just meant that they'd 'accepted' him.

_Nice,_ Haku summarized. The only one of them with any redeeming qualities so far, seemed to be little Chuuya!

_Chuuya…_the teenager mused, serious again. _That kid._ _I never thought he'd be this serious about being a ninja. _He shook his head and winced. _What'd he say – he wants to wander around doing good deeds and rescuing cats?!_ Haku blew out a breath and wondered if he ever heard anything so completely crazy. But his smirk started to fade as recalled its similar resonance with the crazy dream another once confided to him…one who wanted to hold the Land of Water in his hands!

_How can you weigh one dream against another?_ he asked himself and rubbed his chin.

_Still,_ he thought and started to laugh, letting his face fall into his hands,

* * *

At the end of the day, quitting time at last, Haku picked up his shovel and dropped it off at the storage shed then figured on heading right home to rest a bit before dinner.

He'd only gone a block or so before he came upon Mari, who approached from the opposite direction and carried a huge, empty, wicker basket. "Hi, Mari," Haku greeted as he looked up at her in surprise.

"Hi, Ha--," the girl's eyes went wide as she stopped herself, "ha…ha…how are you doing, Hiroo?"

"So far so good," he offered quietly and ignored that she'd almost called him by his real name. "But what are you doing down here?"

Mari gave out a pained, put-upon groan. "Mom's short on groceries and wanted me to get some since I happened to be home early." Her dark, clever eyes canted up at him as she explained coyly, "She said I'm supposed to get Jimon to go with me, but _something_ tells me you might be better protection."

Haku smiled in agreement with her decision, and scratched behind his ear. "I'll try not to disappoint you."

"See that you don't," she quipped, smirking as Haku took the basket and fell in beside her. "'Cause you can be replaced. After all, I still got my big bro' as backup."

"Sure," he agreed compliantly, and the two started in the direction of the markets.

"How's work going so far?" asked Mari.

Haku expressed an indifferent sigh. "It's a job," he replied neutrally. "As one of my colleagues explained to me, 'if it was fun, then they wouldn't call it 'work'. I had a little trouble the first day, but since then I guess it's going ok."

Mari's eyebrow rose as she latched on to her companion's turn of phrase. "What kind of trouble?"  
"Some of the other workmen did not approve of my looks," Haku reported. "They persisted in making an issue of it."

"Ok," she replied, fearing the worst as her imagination wandered, "so what happened?"

"A kick to the biggest one's groin, then a knee under his chin when he doubled over."

"Serves him right," the girl expressed with slight relief, then considered. "Although that's pretty basic, don't you think? I mean, even I know that move."

The ninja nodded. "I didn't want to draw any more attention than I had to. I'm happy to say that I haven't had any trouble since then."

"That's good. Y'know, when dad suggested you get a job, I didn't really think you would."

The two closed ranks to weave around a cluster of loitering workmen who'd gathered around a vendor serving warm sake.

"I might as well do something," Haku answered. "It gets me out of your uncle's basement, and I doubt anyone would look for me among the crews."

Mari frowned uneasily. "Those masked hunter-guys are here looking for you. You probably know already. I guess they've been around for a couple of weeks. Everyone's talking about them. Anyway, that big, fat ninja, the one who killed all those bandits…that's their leader, even though he doesn't wear an ANBU mask. They said his name's Toru Yamashite. 'You know him?"

Haku shook his head.

"Sorry, I kinda figured you all knew each other." She gave him a concerned look. "Are you scared?"

The young man's brow knitted. "A little apprehensive," he admitted with businesslike honesty. "That they're still here leads me to think that they have some way of determining my approximate location. Though, obviously, if they knew exactly where I was they would have acted by now."

Mari bit at her thumbnail. "They're…going to kill you, aren't they?"

Haku felt a pang at the way she'd asked that. It seemed weird that anyone besides him would feel personally concerned over his well-being. Zabuza never had, neither had the Demon Brothers, nor any other of their mutual colleagues. But Mari was not like them, he was starting to realize, and it shouldn't be so hard not to put things to her as if she was.

"They are honor bound to try, Mari," he said, then wished he could take it back. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to say it that plainly."

"It's ok," replied Mari, who flashed a quick, pained smile then looked away. "The Land of Waves is a place where truths are hard. I should be used to it by now."

Inwardly, Haku grumbled at his tactlessness, then tried to explain. "Mari," he began hesitantly, "I didn't mean to give you the idea that all is lost. I know I don't appear fierce, but I assure you that I'm far from helpless. I was taught by the very best and have faced a number of challenges. This is just one more."

"Yeah?" she ventured half-heartedly at first before she warmed to his avowal. "I guess you're right."

Haku grinned at her and nodded.

As the two came closer to the open-air market's bustling stalls, a gang of little kids crossed their paths, roughhousing as they played some kind of game. The two in front, one in an orange t-shirt, the other in blue, but both wearing blue headbands, whirled to fling round, wood 'shuriken' at their pursuers: a taller, lanky, shirtless kid in grey, pin-striped trousers who carried a massive, home-made sword; and a shorter boy wearing a green robe and white, theatrical mask.

"Just what the hell is this?!" Mari startled then stopped, looking upon the scene in wide-eyed disbelief.

"They're playing 'ninja'," Haku pointed out. "Can't you see? This is the battle at the bridge."

She looked closer at the furious foursome, then pointed. "Are you telling me that the kid with the mask and his mom's bathrobe is you?"

"So it seems."

The girl frowned and shook her head. "Ok, I get it that the guy with the big cardboard sword with the hole in the end is Zabuza, but who are the other two?"

"The one in blue is Sasuke Uchiha, and the one in orange is Naruto Uzumaki," he offered, then scratched his chin thoughtfully before he speculated: "I suppose they couldn't find a Kakashi or a Sakura."

Mari shot him a look. "I'm sooo surprised they couldn't find a little girl who wouldn't mind getting hit in the head with a cardboard sword or wood throwing-star."

Haku shrugged. "Most girls," he joked, though his tone was dead-level, "just…don't appreciate the finer things in life."

Mari spat derisively. "Yeah, whatever," she opined as 'little Zabuza' grabbed 'littler Naruto' by the shirt with one hand and bopped him repeatedly over the head with his sword. "Is that what you call this?"

"It builds character," the teen ventured playfully, "or so I hear."

"Would you stop," Mari warned as she elbowed him.

The two watched as 'Zabuza,' having shielded himself from a barrage of shuriken with his giant sword, raced at the two leaf ninja and battered them with it. But his powerful, wild backswing caught 'Haku' squarely in the face, knocking his mask off and sending it skittering over the pavement.

The boy bent over, grabbing his face, and started to cry which brought the fun to an end.

"Ouch," said Mari, who winced sympathetically. "Good for him it was only cardboard."

"The bad news," Haku observed, "is that long 1 x 4 the cardboard was covering up."

While the boys stood around the ersatz Haku, with a regretful Zabuza taking a look at the cut on his swelling cheek, the real Haku walked slowly to the abandoned mask, knelt down then picked it up. It was white and made of thin plastic, which Zabuza's blow had put a big crack in, and spanned across the back by a single string of elastic.

Haku grinned thoughtfully as he turned the artifact over in his hand to look at it front and back – a similar face had been his at one time.

"Hey!" Zabuza demanded imperiously. "Give it back!"

Haku looked up at the four boys, who now focused their attention on him, even the wounded 'Haku', who pressed his hand gingerly to the side of his face. "Relax," the ninja explained, and raised his hands in a token of surrender. "I'm not going to keep it." Haku walked forward, brushed past the petulant, scowling Zabuza, and handed the mask to his costumed namesake. "Here you are," he said. "Oh, and you really should duck next time."

Mari gave him a curious look. "You're a fine one to be giving advice," she slurred once the boys had gone. "You did that crap for real!"

"'Just trying to do my good deed for the day."

The girl tapped the side of the boy's head lightly with the heel of her hand. "Did the real Zabuza ever crack you in the squash like that?"

Haku shook his head. "The real Zabuza never hit anybody he didn't mean to," the ninja replied then looked back at the boys who'd started up again where they'd left off.

"What?" asked Mari who turned to look also.

"It's nothing."

* * *

Mari and Haku reached the markets and began their quest for all the things Mrs. Tezuka had asked for. The place was alive with activity: buskers putting on their little shows, juggling, singing songs or playing instruments; panhandlers hassling people for change; religious devotees seeking converts, and pickpockets stalking the crowds like great cats upon the savannah. All the stalls were stocked full of goods, minded by vendors anxious to sell. It was hard not to get sidetracked by all the strange things there were to see and buy here, and it wasn't until Mari took note of the sun's position as it crept lower toward the horizon, that she put her foot down and insisted that they had to get back.

Haku agreed, not wanting to make her, or the awaiting Mrs. Tezuka, mad.

Oddly enough though, even after they had all they needed, it was Mari who stopped several more times to browse before she insisted that they really were on their way home this time. Haku shifted his now-loaded basket from his left hand to his right. The thing was almost too heavy to carry! It was definitely getting late now, and everyone at home would be thinking seriously about dinner.

The two stopped one last time anyway to watch the tail end of a marionette show, where kabuki samurai and ninja battled fearsome puppet monsters in a world framed by a small, portable theater.

When it was finally over, they really, _really_ had to head home. Mari lead the way, pulling on Haku's arm to make him go faster. Haku laughed as he caught up, then fell silent as his eyes crossed those of a young boy, maybe eight years old, with jet hair and eyes. The child wore a floppy white hat with two broad, blue stripes, and teal overalls over a white turtleneck. In one hand he held a stick of rock-candy close to his mouth which was hung open in shock at the sight of the fugitive.

Haku grinned a greeting as he nodded casually then quickened his pace away. _That look,_ he realized. _That…that kid knows me!_

Haku and Mari hadn't gone far before a shrill voice rang through the crowd. "HAKU!" it screeched accusingly. "HEY! I KNOW THAT'S YOU!"

* * *

**Inari**

Hey, dani's random fox…yes, you!

Inari is a canon character so you have to read this ;)

Hehehe! --Jonohex

Inari wandered randomly through the marketplace crowds, craning his head and jumping up as high as he could to catch a look at all the weird things there were to see.

_I wish I was taller! _he thought and pouted.

"Inari!" his mother, Tsunami, called sternly as she marched back to him. "Will you please stay with me. You'll get lost in this crowd."

"Mom!" the boy piped, making the word sound like it had two syllables. "I'm not a kid anymore. And I know how to get home from here."

The woman frowned. "It's still dangerous."

"I'm not afraid," Inari crowed proudly, cocking his thumb toward his puffed-out chest. "Besides, look at all these people. What could happen?"

"You should know better than to ask me that."

Inari's wandering eyes locked suddenly. "Look, Mom," he said excitedly as he pointed, "puppets! Can I see, pleeeeease!"

"Ok, ok," she agreed tentatively, then gave him a firm look. "But only if you promise to stay right there until I come back for you."  
"I promise," he vowed with great seriousness, "with my whole heart!"

"Ok," said Tsunami tiredly. "Remember you promised!"

Inari turned and sped off to get a good place to stand close to the stage before the show began, then abruptly reversed and ran back to Mom. "Mom, mom," he cried urgently as he tugged on her arm. "Can I have some money?"  
"What?" she asked. "What for?"

"I wanna _get_ something."

The woman produced for him a few coins. "Next time, if Grampa doesn't go, you're not going either."

"Thanks, Mom!" Inari squeaked, smiled a bright, endearing smile, then pocketed the coins and again raced off.

Worming his way through the ebb and flow of the crowd, the boy claimed his spot as near to the stage as he could get then bought something sweet from a passing vendor.

"Hey, you're that kid," said the man admiringly as he recognized him.

Inari beamed with pride. It pleased him to no end that people still remembered his part in the battle on the bridge. "Yes, sir," said the kid as he thumbed the straps of his teal overalls then took the candy, "that's me."

The vendor grinned down at him and gave him a delighted chuckle as he patted the boy on the top of his white-hatted head. "Well, nice job, Inari. That was about the craziest thing I've ever seen, and you were really brave!" He rose to move on, but offered in passing, "Enjoy the show. I hear it's pretty good."

A drum roll announced the start of the performance, and Inari watched, rapt with attention, as it began – a saga in miniature, in which heroic marionette heroes and heroines battled gruesome puppet monsters to decide the fate of the world. He almost forgot the candy he'd bought as he found himself entranced by the world the puppeteers created, entering it in his mind.

When it was over, way too soon, he thought, Inari clapped and cheered. The puppeteers came out from behind the stage and bowed. One laid a big blanket down while the other explained how it works: "If you liked the act, toss up some cash!"

Inari had a little change left over from his earlier transaction and gladly parted with it, dropping his coins along with the rest of the crowds' onto the blanket with the kind of reverence normally reserved for wishing-wells.

"Thank ya', little guy," the younger and shorter of the two allowed graciously. "Glad you liked it."

"Hey, mister?" Inari asked before he could turn away.

"Yeah?" the young man answered back, though he made it obvious he didn't really want to be bothered. "What is it?"  
"Well, what happens next?"

The puppeteer shook his head slightly, not understanding. "What do you mean? The good guys won; that's the end of the show."

"Yeah, but, you know, what happens after?"

"Kid, I don't know what you want. Every story's got an end."

The older puppeteer, grey at the temples and along his receding hairline came over, having rolled up the blanket with the money trapped neatly inside. He patted his partner on the back. "I'll handle this, Toshiro, start setting up for the next show," said the man who then bent down to look at Inari. "Sorry about that, young man. He's new, so he doesn't know. You see what happens next, basically, is anything you want."

"Huh?"  
"Yeah, you see, our show does have a beginning, middle and end. But if you liked it, then the characters take on new life inside your head."

The boy frowned. "Aw, that doesn't count."

"Why not?" asked the performer. "None of those characters existed until Toshiro and I made them up then put 'em together in a friend's shop. As for the story, well, I borrowed bits and pieces from different places and made the rest up. Looking at you, I'll bet your imagination's every bit as good as mine…hopefully better! So anything you come up with is bound be as good as anything I can."

"I suppose," replied the boy, though he made it clear he still felt cheated somehow.

"You'll see!" the puppeteer said with a laugh. "Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the show."

"Thanks, mister."

Inari turned to go, then remembered he was supposed to stay and wait for Mom, so he paced instead. Around and around he walked in a meandering circle, thrilled by what he'd seen yet disappointed at the same time that there wasn't more. The boy took another lick of his candy then looked off into the crowd.

His eyes fell on a face there and, for some reason, they refused to leave it. Inari took the young man (and he wasn't a little kid like him, but not a full-fledged adult he had to take seriously either) as a girl at first but then had second thoughts. The guy carried a big wicker basket by the handle with one hand, while some girl pulled playfully on the other. His white t-shirt had holes in it and was stained and smeared with stuff just like his worn, tan pants and knobby-toed boots – the same kind of clothes worn by a bijillion other workmen.

_But that face,_ Inari thought furiously as he studied the teen's delicate features and slim build, the grey eyes, long neck and sloping shoulders. _The hair's not right; there's something different about his hair._

"Haku," he uttered softly as he worked it out and the stranger's identity materialized. That instant, he remembered it all – how Gato had sent the Demon of the Hidden Mist, Zabuza, and his apprentice, Haku, to kill his Grandfather, Tazuna. He remembered what he'd overheard of how the two had tried to kill his friends, Kakashi, Sasuke, Sakura, and above all, Naruto!"

_But…it can't be_, the kid thought for an instant, before he remembered that fat, ugly hunter-ninja, Toru, who'd informed Grandfather less than a month ago that the Demon's apprentice was still alive, having inexplicably survived the fight at the bridge.

Inari remembered him now, from when Haku laid on the bridge beside the body of his fallen master – a man he'd been willing to die for.

The boy's breath quickened.

The others had thought Haku's sacrifice noble somehow, but he did not. What was this ninja but another weapon in the hand of the man sent to kill his grandfather, whose cohorts had hit his mother, murdered his father, Kaiza, and tried to kidnap him!

Fury welled inside him. His cheeks burned as his brow narrowed fiercely. "HAKU!" Inari shouted, so intensely that his throat burned, then sped after the fugitive. "HEY! I KNOW THAT'S YOU!"

The boy pushed and bulled through the crowd as he tried to overtake the fugitive, but the markets were thronged with people, he was short, and his quarry, at a distance and from behind, was hard to distinguish from all the others. Still, Inari persisted. "Come on!" the kid screamed, so loudly that people startled and parted before him, then stared at him like he had lost his mind. "What, are you afraid, Haku!?"

On and on the boy pressed, watching the back of the fleeing killer's head appear then disappear in the shifting crowds.

His grit his teeth as he progressed closer. _I'm catching up,_ his thoughts fumed. _I've almost got him cornered!_ But as the crowd cleared, Inari gaped. Haku and the girl had vanished. The boy stopped, stunned, then looked around wildly for any trace of the pair. His dark eyes searched doorways and windows, looked down the adjacent alleyways and up and down the street.

Inari's fists balled as he quaked with anger. "HAKU!" he shouted to the heavens. "I'll find you! I swear I'll find you!"

Curses flowed from the boy; curses much more graphic and vile than you'd expect from an eight-year old, as he stormed and stamped wrathfully.

Suddenly a powerful hand clamped over his mouth from behind while another scooped under his arm, lifted him up and carried him into an alley. Inari struggled and kicked furiously the whole time but to no avail. The grip that held him suddenly released and spun him around. Before he could look up, a brutal blow struck his cheek hard, jarring bone and drawing blood.

Surprised and stricken, Inari looked up into an awful, familiar face.

"Hello again," said Zori with a threatening leer. His pale skin and triangular tattoos beneath his eyes were exactly as the boy remembered.

Waraji, close behind with his arabesque tattoos and three bulbed ponytails, leaned nonchalantly on his partner's shoulders, then came forward. "What's up, little brat?" he seethed as his hand drew back almost to forever as it reached up into the sky, then came crashing across the boy's face. "You and that punk leaf-ninja tricked us pretty good. I've waited too long to give you a receipt for that."

Inari flew back from the punch's impact; his back crashed against a row of metal trash cans, whose jarred contents rattled from the impact. Trembling now from shock, with tears flowing from his eyes and blood pouring from his nose, Inari cringed.

"Well, look at him now, Waraji," snickered Zori, laughing gustily at the sight. "Little puke thought he was some kind of tough guy."

"Yeah," the taller man said. "But he didn't have anything a couple of good bitch-slaps couldn't take away."

The two bandits shared a knowing expression then drew their swords slowly so that the terrified little boy could see and hear every razor-sharp inch hiss smoothly from their sheaths.

"Any last words, kid?" Waraji growled. "Before we butcher you like a pig."

"Look, Waraji," observed Zori with cruel mirth. "I think he's actually going to say something."

Inari, quaking uncontrollably, tried to look up at them but couldn't quite manage it. "I…I'm, n-n-not afraid."

The bandits laughed as they raised their blades, then suddenly stopped with their faces wide with shock. Inari froze, not knowing what to expect, until a mellow voice issued from above and behind him, level and cool with menace, "Hello again, gentlemen. You do remember me, I hope."

"It's…it's impossible!" cried Zori who backed up a step, with his face pale.

"Yeah," added Waraji who joined him. "You're dead!"

Inari slowly turned around and gazed up at the object of his hunt – Haku, who stood solidly on the rims of the trash cans, with his lean arms folded.

"That's right," said the Demon's apprentice, "and I've come back, all the way from hell to see if you two aholes have anything in you that a couple of good bitch slaps can't take away."

The ninja moved then, so fast that Haku vanished in a blur. Inari blinked and startled at the sharp, percussive sounds that erupted behind him. By the time he turned back, both bandits were on the ground. Zori writhed in pain, howling. His arms didn't look right at all. Waraji's upper half vanished into the depths of a trash can, which had two giant, ghastly dents in it – one low in the middle, and the other high on the side.

Of Haku, there was no trace.

"Ha…Haku," hissed Inari, who swallowed hard and sniffled as he stumbled from the alley. "Haku."

* * *

**Juri**

Juri Chono relaxed, her mind in a state of restful awareness, as she held the posture called 'reclining Buddha' -- balanced on her extended left fist and the edge of her left foot so that she formed a rigid, leaning 'T'.

Energy flowed through her body which was getting stronger by the day under her mysterious master's redoubled efforts to train her. Whoever he was, he was important, this, the girl could tell. The old gentleman's crisp accent had been learned in a good school. His hair and nails were always trimmed and clean. His eyes were clear and proud, being accustomed to command and never having settled for the ablative, petty vices that lower class people indulged in to excess.

She didn't know, or even want to know, specifically who he was. It was enough that he was her patron, and that great things lay ahead for her.

The sound of Shr-fu's bells told her that someone was coming. Juri frowned at the interruption but sensed the familiar energies and vowed to keep the two minor-league criminals waiting. As she tried to settle deeper into her trance-like state, the disciple couldn't help but hear the odd groans and moans, wheezing breaths and whimpers.

"Ok," she said begrudgingly at last and opened her eyes.

Zori and Waraji huddled before her. The shorter, paler one, Zori's, face was a rictus of pain, and Juri could tell by looking at him that someone had broken his left and right clavicles. Waraji, tall and dark, had a dazed, concussed look and an evil bruise at the midsection – an indication of internal injuries.

"Wha --?!" Juri gasped and slumped from her posture, overtaken by a breathtaking fit of laughter. Her hoots and snickers echoed off the walls of the old factory and its concrete yard. "No!" she choked. "Oh, no…please, don't tell me. Little Inari kicked your ass!" The girl sat up, rolling with convulsive laughter, and hammered the pavement lightly with her hands. "Why --?" Juri started then broke off. The expressions on their faces were the funniest things she'd ever seen! "Why am I surprised? A twelve-year old beat you up last time, but at least he was a for-real ninja. I guess Inari's just a little bad-ass, a real, what-ya-call, _rei de los chingones!"_

The battered pair looked at her ruefully then tried to speak.

"Hold on, hold on," cried Juri who rose, gestured at them then said in a dead-pan voice. "You know what, I'm going to hire him. I'll hire him and give him your jobs."

Zori grimaced harder than he had been, then cried out, "It was Haku!"

Juri stopped and stared at him hard. "You're sure?"

The man nodded weakly. "He's…a little different – clothes, hair, but it was him."

The young woman nodded. "Go see Dokonjonosuke in town. He's on the payroll and might be able to patch you two back together."

Without another word, Zori and Waraji staggered away, leaving Juri, who stood deep in thought.

"You heard?" she asked tersely.

"Indeed," said her master, who emerged from his garden with a pesticide-filled atomizer in his hands. "I confess, I did not expect to receive such a splendid report."

"'Splendid,'" repeated Juri, "how so?"

The tall, silver-haired, old man looked down at her. "Haku is alive, as you had heard, and now we have confirmation. He served the Demon of the Hidden Mist well enough and he shall serve us no less adequately. Between your fire and his ice, we'll manage return matters in the Land of Waves back to normal in no time."

Juri's eyes narrowed coldly.

"Come now, my dear," her Shr-fu's steady voice lifted. "Jealousy ill becomes you. You, Juri, shall always be my first and favorite."

"If he's the type who'd actually give a damn about saving a single child's life, then do you really think he's got the stomach for what all you have in mind?"

"Tut-tut, you have misread events," the man corrected her. "Haku could care less about the welfare of the engineer's grandson. He was merely repaying the insult those two miscreants visited upon his master, Zabuza, when he was recovering from his first battle with the copycat ninja, Kakashi. The boy just happened to be there, that's all."

Juri grimaced but kept her thoughts to herself. "If you say so."

"Of course! Ah, my disciple, a leopard cannot change its spots."

"And if this one has?"

"In that unlikely event," her teacher stated, "then you may kill him."

"Well," said Juri as a grin crept over her wide face. "Then let's all hope he's still the same old Demon's apprentice."

* * *

_Ok, everybody, what'd ya' think?!!_

_--Jono'_

_

* * *

_


	7. Chapter 7

_Yes! I did it! I actually managed to post a SHORT chapter! (sniff) I'm so proud of myself. _

_For those who've made it this far, I thank you for your patience and hope you'll like Chapter 7._

_Thanks 8) !!_

* * *

**Mari**

_Just what the hell is going on?!_ wondered Mari, her tolerance at it's limit, as Haku guided her at an urgent pace through the market crowds. Some annoying little punk was following them and shouting like they'd stole his cookie, and calling out her fugitive companion loudly by his _real_ name.

Again the kid in the white hat and teal overalls cried, and this time Mari dug in her heels and spun around to confront him. "That's it!" she hissed with angry finality; a scowl erupting over her reddening face. "I'm going to teach this loud-mouth, rug-rat just how real life can get!"

But the girl's breath left her as Haku coiled an arm around her, gripped her with surprising strength, then jumped. High and fast into the air they soared, and Mari still wasn't quite sure what had happened when they landed lightly atop the roof of an adjacent building.

Mari's mouth hung open as she stared down at the street from her new vantage. She'd known of course that ninja were capable of such feats, but had never felt or seen anything like that before. Haku had done it so easily too, so naturally, like it was nothing; and for him, it probably was nothing.

Mari looked up at him in amazement, exhilarated, and conscious of his arm around her waist _almost_ like an embrace. But Haku's expression was nearly void of emotion as he looked down over the parapet at the strange boy who'd followed them and was now having a stomping, screaming fit on the street below.

"Who --," Mari started, then caught her breath, "who is that kid?"

The young ninja shook his head slightly. "I've never seen him before."

The girl's eyes narrowed in disbelief, but then remembered that outright lies really weren't her unusual housemate's style. "Well," Mari stated the obvious, "it sure looks like he knows you…enough to hate your guts."

Haku nodded and continued his vigil, strangely serious like he was most of the time.

After a few moments of this, Mari grunted, venting dissatisfaction. "Ok, just what was with you dragging me along like that; and would you please tell me what we're doing way up here?"

Haku looked at her. "I had to get you out of the way."

Mari sputtered. "Get me out the way?! What are you talking about? I have _five_ brothers!" she stated hotly and flicked her hand in a dismissive gesture, "five! We fight _all…the…time_; I'm pretty sure I can handle myself against any stupid eight-year old!"

"It's not him I'm worried about," Haku explained then canted his head.

The girl looked again and saw the two, sword-armed men who bulled their way down the street, headed toward the intersection below. One was very tall, dark-skinned, and wore an eye-patch. The other was shorter, pale, and with a stocking cap and grey, hooded jacket. "Those two!" Mari gasped in recognition. "Zori and Waraji, they're…they were in Gato's gang. They killed Kaiza, and God knows how many others." She looked anxiously at Haku. "Don't tell me they're after you too?"

"That was my thought," he admitted stoically. "The last time we met I embarrassed them in front of their employer, so it might…be…that --."

Mari startled while her ninja companion fell silent, both surprised as the two thugs seized the unsuspecting child, hauled him into the alley then began to beat him. The dark-haired girl gasped and brought both hands to her mouth as Zori and Waraji then drew their swords; their murderous intentions clear.

Mari turned to urge, beg or demand Haku's intervention, she wasn't entirely sure which, but the teenager had already set down their basket full of groceries and gone. His leap carried him to the alleyway's opposite wall, where he kicked off and spun in mid-air, then landed with cat-like grace on the rims of the trash cans behind the two men's little victim.

Words were exchanged, what exactly Mari couldn't be sure, then when Haku moved it was like a blur. The edges of his right and left palms flashed high into Zori's upper chest, breaking bones, before the dismayed bandit could even move. While Waraji lunged and chopped with his blade, Haku snatched up a trash can, vaulted over him, then brought it down hard over the taller man like an imprisoning straight-jacket.

Grabbing under the rim, Haku whirled the trapped assailant around into a wall, blasted a kick into him low through the trash can's thin armor which crumpled like foil under the impact, then whipped his opposite heel around to smash him high.

The rogue ninja arrived back next to Mari on the roof of the adjacent building before either bandit hit the ground.

"Damn!" the girl exclaimed appreciatively, dark eyes wide. Her youngest brother Chuuya had gone on and on (and on and on) about the Demon's Apprentice's exploits. Now, she was starting to believe them.

"We need to go," Haku stated. "There's no telling who else might have heard." Again the ninja took hold of Mari, who collected the basket and put her free arm around him. He then held up his free hand whose fingers began to form a series of strange and intricate patterns.

"Is…that a hand seal?" Mari inquired curiously as the two vanished from the rooftop amidst a whirling wind.

Appearing in an alleyway, blocks away, Haku answered her, "Yes."

The girl laughed at his lack of explanation, then swayed, a little giddy from the experience. "Are you going to teach Chuuya how to do that?" she remarked between chuckles. "I hope not, 'cause there'll be no shutting him up."

Haku stared at her in surprise.

"You didn't think I didn't know, did you?"

"I…guess I thought you would have said something." He looked at her again. "How did you know?"

"I'm his big sister!" Mari explained in a mocking, yet still amiable, tone. "He can't hide anything from me. I've seen him doing all those push-ups and crunches, standing in stances, and all that other crazy crap. Obviously you showed him."

The young man's brow knitted with concern. "And what do you think?"

"Good for him!" she piped. "He looks a lot better, not quite as pale or pudgy, and he's not so mouthy anymore either."

"So, I mean," Haku tried again, "you don't have any doubts about him…that maybe he'll misuse what I show him?"

"Nah," said Mari who waved her hand. "Sure, he's the world champion of obnoxious, but he's a good little guy deep down."

The young man raised an eyebrow, then gave her a somewhat reproving glance. "You might tell him that every now and then," he suggested pointedly. "That might just make him a little less twitchy."

The girl's eyes narrowed. "I'll think about it," she answered cagily with a subtle inflection that conveyed her disdain for any outsider's advice about her family while simultaneously acknowledging that it might be right. "Anyway," Mari went on, "how come you're so bugged about this?"

"I just…I'm not sure how he'll turn out," he stated offhandedly. "I don't want him to be like all those rogues and bandits, the mist ninja, Zabuza…or me."

Mari laughed and fixed him with a look. "Lighten up, will you?!" she chided. "Just listen to you being so serious all the time. He'll be just fine."

"How can you be so sure?"

"My little brother's a lot stronger in his opinions than you think; or haven't you gotten that by now? The other thing is – he's got _you_ training him. And as for you, I don't think you turned out so bad…considering."

"Considering…what?" the young ninja asked, not at all sure if he should.

Mari gave him a grimace of a grin. "Considering," she began to illuminate, "that your sensei was a stone-cold killer who shaved his eyebrows and had delusions of grandeur; I think you're surprisingly normal!"

Haku felt the sting and immediately wanted to rise to Zabuza's defense, but what had she said that wasn't the literal truth?

"Sorry," said Mari, who sensed his ambivalence. "I didn't mean that in a bad way."

The ninja let it go, gave her an almost-apologetic look then laughed -- an easy, rolling, comfortable sound.

The girl glanced at him strangely. "I didn't even know you _could_ laugh like that. So what's so funny?"

"'Surprisingly normal'," the young fugitive reiterated as he smiled at her. "I don't think anyone's ever called me that before."

Mari's features pinched together impishly. "First time for everything."

Haku nodded in agreement, then took the big, wicker basket back from her.

As the two fell in beside each another, their hands joined as if by their own accord. Both their expressions froze, neither wanting to overreact or under-appreciate the meaning of the gesture.

Haku forced himself to look straight ahead, but then glanced down shyly at their coupled hands and the two shared an awkward grin as they walked slowly through the village streets toward home.

* * *

**Inari**

Even though his young face was battered and bloody, Inari had not gone home.

The boy, though still shaken and trembling, had walked instead with purposeful stride all the way down to the waterfront's less scenic precincts where the boats docked, seagulls flapped and cried, and the surf lapped gently against the piers.

Though it was almost evening, many of the boats were still gone -- out fishing or carrying their small cargoes. There were few people about. Some of those few that were gave the boy an alarmed look. Some offered their help, but were explosively rebuffed.

Inari, silent and staring hard, walked past a few plots where old shops and houses had fallen in and were yielding gradually to nature, until at last he spotted a faded sign that read out the name of the place he looked for: The Junk.

Drawing a deep breath, the boy paced forward, came around a bank of planters and stepped up a plinth of cracked, painted, concrete steps onto the run-down bar's open-air patio.

Before he could take another step, a man appeared in front of him. The boy's dark eyes wandered up the stranger's camouflage-patterned fatigue pants, dense, mesh vest worn under a multi-pocketed vest, to the zodiac mask over his face that had upon it the abstracted features of a rooster and with the glyph that represented the Village Hidden in the Mist centered at the forehead.

"Boo!" the ninja offered energetically.

The boy shrank for only a moment before he stalked forward and flailed his small fist into the ANBU's sculpted, tire-hard midsection. "Quit it!" Inari shouted.

Rooster-mask chuckled with appreciation. "Ok, ok," he gave in. "Sorry about that, little man. I didn't mean to _scare_ you."

From a table beyond, a woman's voice interjected sternly: "Leave him alone, Eiji, he's just a kid."

The little boy huffed for breath while the mist ninja gave his bruised, cut face a look-over. "So what the hell happened to you?"

"I'm _not_ scared." Inari looked at him sullenly, then glanced away. "Got beat up."

"Ah," said the man in an understanding, brotherly tone. "Sorry, kid, that's a tough break. Looks like you handled it, though." Incoming waves made the boats docked nearby rock up and down in their berths. Ropes swayed and slapped against masts and furled sails. "So tell me," asked the ANBU nonchalantly, "who was it who gave you the 'extreme makeover'; some neighborhood kid?"

The black-haired boy looked up at him. "No!" he insisted and trembled with tears, "it was Zori and Waraji. They…they --!" Inari broke off, shaking with breathless sobs – not for his own injuries but in remembrance of what those two had done to his father.

The ninja's startled expression was clear even though the white, red and black opacity of his mask. "What?!" he cried. "I've heard of them. Are you telling me that grown-ass men did this to you?"

Inari nodded and wiped his eyes, at which the ninja fumed. "Well, I'll tell you what kid: if I ever run into those two, I'll make the beating you got seem gentle."

While the piqued ANBU rubbed his knuckles and contemplated with greater specificity what exactly he would do, a young woman approached. Though her features were mild and pretty, she was dressed in a militant style similar to Eiji's. Her gentle, brown eyes widened at the sight of the boy's face.

"Oh!" she offered tenderly as she bent close to him, "Just look at your face! Come over here. Let me take a look at you." The kunoichi put her arm behind the boy and guided him toward a table at which an older woman sat, who wore a stylized 'rat' mask over her round face.

The lady ANBU leaned back in her chair and gestured casually as she spared him a glance. "What's your name, kid?"  
"Inari," replied the boy while the woman's younger teammate produced a medical kit and began to tend to his wounds.

"Hmm," the masked woman went on in thought, "Inari…Inari, I know I know that name from somewhere."

"I'm Eiji," the first ninja introduced himself proudly. "After Aya here gets you sewn up, I'll make sure you get home ok. How'd that be? You must live somewhere around here, right?"

The kid shook his head.

"No?" piped Eiji from behind his mask. "Then what are you doing down here; 'you get lost or something?"  
Again Inari shook his head. "I'm looking for you."

The ANBU started to chuckle at the idea, but Inari cut him short. "I saw Haku."

Silence fell. All three ninja froze.

The little boy looked around anxiously, then shouted, "Well, you guys are looking for him, right?!"

Eiji patted Inari's white-hatted head and shifted skeptically. "And how would you even know what he looks like? I mean, I doubt he was prancing around in his dress, stolen ANBU mask and geisha hairdo, like it was old times."

The rat-masked kunoichi slowly sat up straight and studied the kid's face.

Inari swallowed and shook his head. "I saw his face before. I was there at the battle at the bridge."

"Yukimasa!" the older woman shouted at once toward the back. "Pinch off, then get your ass out here now!"

The young ninja-hunter, Eiji, pulled up a chair, dragging it slowly over the deck, then pulled his mask up so that it rested on top of his head. He was a lot younger than Inari had supposed he was, but with an adult's serious expression on his face. The ANBU shared a look with his teammates then stared straight into the kid's dark eyes with unsettling intensity.

Another ninja, a man similar to the others but floppier in appearance, rushed up to the table. "Ok, ok, I'm here already, Orimi," he blurted as his eyes raced from the boy to the rest of his colleagues. "What's…going on?"

Inari stared at his rapturous audience then startled as Eiji reached out slowly and rested his hand on his shoulder. Inari looked back at him uncertainly as the ninja's fingers unintentionally began to squeeze.

"Tell us everything," he said in a level tone. "Don't spare a detail."

* * *

**Haku**

Rain hammered on the empty warehouse's metal roof, sounding more like undulant waves of ball-bearings than drops of water.

Haku stood in the middle of the cavernous, man-made space, rubbing his smooth, delicate chin pensively between finger and thumb, while his solitary, young student, Chuuya, waited before him in anxious anticipation.

"W…what is it, sensei?" squeaked the boy urgently. "What are we doing here?"

Haku's grey eyes flickered toward him. "No one works when it's raining," he muttered. "Everyone went home at the first few drops. I picked out this place as a good place to train you.

"I know you've worked hard to develop your chakra," the young man offered supportively. "I now intend to show you how to use it."

It took a moment for his teacher's words to register, and then: "Righteous!" Chuuya cried, jumped up and pumped his small fist into the air. His exuberant, high-pitched voice rang off the warehouse's windowless metal and block walls. But Haku frowned gravely, which did not go unnoticed by the boy. "What is it, Haku-sensei? Oh!" he gasped guiltily. "Is it 'cause I called you 'sensei'?"

The ninja shook his head. "Since you seem unable to help yourself, you may call me 'sensei' if you wish, but that's not what bothers me."

"Cool!" the youngest of Mari's brother's cheered then quieted. "Well…what is it then? I've worked really hard!"

"It's not your enthusiasm or work-ethic either, Chuuya. What I question is your character." The little boy stared blankly for a moment then his expression squirmed with sad emotion, and Haku rushed to explain: "I don't mean to disparage you, Chuuya. It's just that, what I wish to teach you is ancient and very powerful. When most people acquire power of any sort, then tend to use it in meaningless and disappointing ways: to answer perceived insults; to show off; make themselves rich; or exalt in their power by harming others."

The fugitive otherwise known as the Demon's Apprentice began to pace. "This little speech is completely pointless since I've already made my decision, but know this, Chuuya," the young man's calm, grey eyes riveted on the kid's doe-like brown as he annunciated every syllable, "if you misuse anything I show you, then our association ends at that moment forever. Do you understand?"

Chuuya nodded with an oath-taker's gravity.

Haku stopped pacing, expressed a sigh, then started again, this time tapping his fingers together somewhat self-consciously. "One more thing," he added in a hesitant tone, "try not to annoy Mari so much."

"Huh?!" the boy bristled. "But sensei, that's, like, impossible! She…Mari's a girl, and crazy!"

"All I'm asking for is an effort," explained Haku awkwardly but in a soothing voice as he rubbed behind his head. "Besides, you owe her a great debt. It was she who vouched for you."

"Mari…vouched for me?" The little boy's eyes widened as his mind struggled to encompass the idea's alien novelty.

"Indeed," Haku affirmed lightly, "she said that although she finds you coarse of mien, you are noble of character."

"She…she said _that_?" gasped Chuuya in a hushed voice.

"Not those words," the teenager admitted wryly. "I may have embellished, but her sentiment was clear enough."

Teacher and student fell silent as the rainstorm spent its noisy, whirling strength against the warehouse's resilient enclosure. Above them the lights flickered but held steady.

"So," the boy began, biting nervously at his thumbnail, "you really think I could be a real-life ninja, sensei?"

"Yes," replied Haku. "I think you show great promise, although I still have reservations about teaching you – whether it's the right thing to do, and if I'm adequate for the task."

"But…you said you were going to…"

"And I will...I will. After all," Haku related reflectively, "it was just by way of a chance meeting with a stranger on a bridge that I became a ninja. Had I turned left that day instead of right, or had Zabuza chosen another route, then…who knows?

"Whether our meeting is by blind chance or through an expression of the divine will, it's the same for you. Maybe my surviving the battle on the bridge has less to do with me and more to do with you anyway. Who can say?"

Chuuya swallowed nervously at the teenager's introspection. "Sensei?"

"Sorry," offered Haku in a heartier voice. "To listen to me talk about things I know nothing about isn't why I brought you here. I do have to ask you something else though: If, for whatever reason, I was not around to teach you, would you still follow this path you've decided for yourself? Would you still devote your life to becoming a ninja?"

Chuuya stared at him in alarm. "You're not going away, are you Haku-sensei?" he asked in a hollow, tearful voice. "I don't want to learn from anyone else!"

"Sometimes you don't have a choice," replied Haku, whose face fell. "Zabuza…left me, despite all I tried to do to stop it."

The boy turned away gloomily, but then nodded that he understood.

"Whatever happens, Chuuya, do not go to the Village Hidden in the Mist to continue your training," the young ninja advised him emphatically. "That place is…sick at heart. And I hate to think what they would turn you into, or if you would even survive their tutelage."

"If you're not around, then…where _should_ I go?"

Haku looked down at him, shrugged then smiled. "Can't you guess?"

"Konohagakure," suggested the boy after a pause, "the Village Hidden in the Leaves?"

The ninja nodded. "I've never seen finer, more capable or more humane students than those three who safeguarded Tazuna, or a sensei who cared more about them. If it comes to it, go there if you have to go somewhere."

The youngest Tezuka brother blinked as he tried to come to grips with what seemed to him to be a wildly hypothetical situation. "What should I tell them?"

"Ask for the copy ninja, Kakashi Hitake. Tell him the truth," Haku urged and found that his lilting voice cracked with emotion. "Tell him I sent you, and tell him," he had to stop and think for a moment, "tell him…no hard feelings."

The boy nodded. "That's what I'll do, sensei. But ONLY if I have to."

Haku grit his teeth to keep his composure, then forced a smile. "Very good, Chuuya," he offered in a measured tone as brighter spirits returned. "Now, shall we begin?

* * *

_Thanks for reading!!!_

_--Jono'_


	8. Chapter 8

**Toru**

The ANBU pack-leader sat leaned back against one of the massive, bolted, steel uprights at the short end of one of the three, truss-armed, tower cranes that loomed high over the Land of Waves. Far down below him a new city sprung, rising up from the near-squalor of abandoned or neglected shacks and shabby storefronts like tender shoots after the first rains of spring to glory in the cloud-dappled sunshine.

Again Toru Yamashite was struck. There was an ingenuity at work here the likes of which the heavy-set captain had never seen before. Though it appealed to him, delving deep down into philosophical levels he didn't know he had or thought he'd lost long ago, the man didn't know if he could trust it.

Unbidden, a snatch of half-forgotten poetry drifted through his thoughts:

_Far away…far away. Are not all things lovely far away? (1)_

And he had to admit it was, it really was…quite lovely -- the Great Naruto Bridge and all the construction its completion had spun off; the hotels and shops; a new marketplace; a marina, and homes for all the workers who'd been drawn here.

Someone very clever had put the deal together. Teams of architects, planners, landscapers and engineers had really sweated the designs; and what all the contractors and laborers had wrought was worthy of anything created by any of the great civilizations of old.

_But what is it really? What is its nature?_ the Pack-Leader asked himself out of long-held, well-practiced cynicism, and thought again of this massive undertaking's masters: Keiya Okore and Yoichiro Sato, who'd tried hard to get him on the payroll. One was a dreamer, the other a grifter.

_Well, not a _scammer_ maybe,_ he modified his conclusion somewhat, _but a _schemer_ certainly._

_So what does that make all this -- the realization of a dream, or just an expression of greed? _

Again the big mist-ninja thought about just how fleeting transformative dreams like the one unfolding down below could be, and how easily flashes of inspiration could be snuffed out. Then too there was Zabuza Momochi, whose painful memory still loomed, vivid and fresh in his mind. Hadn't he too had a dream?

_Ahh, screw it,_ Toru concluded abruptly._ I got me a bad-guy to gack, so get back on the clock!_

Wind whistled through the man's clothes and brushy hair, and made the covers of his unsealed pockets flap. Ragged strains of music reached his ears through the crackling speaker of a small radio:

_How many times, have_

_you heard someone say:_

_If I had his money,_

_I could do things my way... (2)_

The singer's voice was low, slow and flat, but resonant with character and the kind of wisdom that was hard-learned.

For the ninetieth time today, Toru pushed his thick-lensed, black-framed glasses up his forehead and brought a pair of matte-finished, glare-shielded binoculars to his eyes. There in the bright circle of telescopically-focused clarity walked none other than his elusive quarry, the Demon's Apprentice – the fugitive from the Land of Water, Haku.

Even at this distance, the ANBU was careful not to project any intentions. A ninja of Haku's level of development would, without a doubt, be sensitive to such things.

Toru sniffed at the sea air as he watched the slender, unassuming young man in a hard-hat, t-shirt and grimy jeans, scoop up a trowel full of mortar, apply it to the awaiting section of concrete block wall, then set another new unit in place.

The ANBU couldn't help but chuckle to and at himself. For all their vaunted powers, training, and strange and ancient jutsus, their missions' successes so often came down to improbably-lucky breaks – in this case an informant, and none other than Tazuna the engineer's grandson!

_You can't make this shit up, _Toru offered himself world-wearily as he tweaked the focus.

Many hundreds of feet away, Haku exchanged a little conversation with some of his sweating, sun-crisped, crew mates, then took a swig from a plastic water bottle.

_Who'd have thought you'd end up like this,_ the ANBU considered, _trading your weapons for tools…and --._ He stopped to watch as the fugitive took off his decal-decorated, 'Safety First!' helmet, shook out sweat-dampened ribbons of still-fairly-long hair, then wiped his face with the hem of his shirt, exposing fish-white skin as he did.

_My God,_ the ninja grimaced, shook his head then let the binoculars fall to rest at his side. _That's the worst case of farmer's tan I've ever seen. And I'm not one to talk!_

The Pack-Leader thought he'd kill for a dose of his anise seeds to chew on, it helped him work things out, but he was not about to attempt to get to them in this wind.

_What a waste though,_ he judged, returning to the subject at hand. _He's just a kid; can't be more than fifteen._

Toru again wished he could have been there when Inari had walked in to their unofficial headquarters at The Junk, if nothing else, so that he could have seen the looks on his team's faces. But he'd had other matters to attend to and besides that, what was the point of having a team at all if you didn't rely on them to handle things in your absence.

The matter of the Mizukage's goon, leg-breaker and personal adjutant, Krishinay Rahaman, who'd come looking for him, weighed heavily on Toru and he'd had to check on that. What the ANBU Captain learned was not encouraging.

Zabuza's attempted coup and, not coincidentally, his attempt on the Mizukage's life, had wrought a change within the ninja lord.

_And why not?_ thought Toru. _Near death experiences often have that effect._

And like the proverbial pebble thrown into a pond, that change had expressed itself by rippling outward in all directions through the Land of Waves.

Momochi's almost-revolution had laid bare just how uninspiring the Mizukage was to his rank-and-file. It had been a real embarrassment how half-heartedly the Village's senior jonin and members of the ANBU fought on his behalf.

_It had laid bare too just how many thought Zabuza was right!_ the burly ninja considered in addition.

Some of Toru's remaining friends and contacts called what the Mizukage was doing now through reassignments, demotions and executions, a 'housecleaning'. Others called it a purge. Either way, anyone who'd become a mist ninja prior to the training academy's reforms that followed in the bloody wake of young Momochi's graduation day massacre was being replaced.

Though Toru had done his part to beat back Zabuza and his insurgents, he'd let his gums flap a lot more than was healthy and it seemed that he was going to pay a price for that – the ultimate price.

_There's gratitude for you, _Toru thought with a sneer then expressed a weary sigh at his past indiscretions, while the radio sang:

_Once I was win-ning_

_in fortune and fame._

_Everything I dreamed for_

_To get a start in life's game._

"Tac Four to Tac Leader. Over." Toru's two-way RC spat, making Aya's soft voice sound like she was gargling tin and electricity.

Still, it was a welcome relief from his tortuous thoughts and preoccupations.

The Pack-Leader flicked down the scratched, crud-crusted volume dial of his radio. "Tac Leader receiving, go ahead, Aya. Over," he answered loudly.

"I searched the house. There is nothing noteworthy. Family checks out. Over."

_Is that a haiku?_ Toru paused for a moment, but couldn't quite remember. In any case, it wasn't important.

"Nice work, Aya," the big man granted. "That's what we figured. Go help Orimi keep an eye on the girl. What's her name again? Oh, yeah, and that brother of Mr. Tezuka's, Maceo. Over."

"Got it," the two-way hissed. "And it's 'Mari', chief, Mari Tezuka. Tac Four out."

The stocky ANBU dialed up his radio.

_-- ended and my time has run out._

_My friends and my loved ones_

_will leave there no doubt._

Toru's thick fingers scratched his pudgy, stubble-covered chin. He was struck by his quarry's strategy, elegant and basic in its simplicity – just lie low. Of course, it had been no problem for Haku to sucker some unsuspecting family to take him in, pretending to be some pitiful child of the streets with an angel's face, a sob-story and no one to turn to; and then take a regular sort of job and blend in, after all, few had ever seen him without his mask.

_Still, I got to hand it to you, Haku,_ Toru acknowledged, giving credit where credit was due. _It's easier said than done. You had to make yourself do it. Who'd have guessed that a nasty ole' wild cat like you could make yourself be a tame ole' house cat for so long? I wonder just how long you were planning to keep that act up?_

The man smirked thoughtfully.

_It's really amazing too, just how quickly things can change. One moment, I'm thinking we'll never find you…at least, not before Rahaman comes for me. The next: we go from trying to find a needle in a haystack to planning a simple take-down._

Toru knew right where and when that would happen, between the Tezuka's house and the construction site, tomorrow, when Haku walked home from work. There was a small field, a vacant lot, and a corner where the adjacent buildings were abandoned. That was the least populated part of the route so there was less chance for random casualties or for the criminal to resort to hostage-taking, human shields, or a transformation jutsu.

The Tezuka's daughter, Mari would probably be with him and that was a problem. Toru grimaced at the thought, then sighed with resignation. Most mist-ninja wouldn't bat an eye at 'collateral damage', he realized, even if the body count rivaled that of a plague or conflagration. To him though, it had always seemed…sloppy, unprofessional somehow.

But there was nothing to be done about the girl. Aya had suggested that they intercept her – not a bad thought. But Toru realized if she didn't show up all of a sudden, as she had every day for the last week, it could put Haku on alert.

_It's an imperfect world,_ the ninja reluctantly summed up. _You have to make the best out of what you got to work with._

_Soon, very soon now, it will be time to take the renegade ninja out. If all goes well, in a few minutes work, we'll put the blood-drenched tale of one Zabuza Momochi: the Demon of the Hidden Mist, and his heir-apparent, Haku, to an end._

_And then? _Toru asked himself.

Above the sound of the rushing wind and the seabirds' plaintive cries, his radio answered:

_And there's one thing for cer-tain_

_when it comes my time…_

_I'll leave this ole' world_

_with a satisfied mind._

* * *

**Inari**

Inari was in big trouble. That much was obvious, and he didn't have to think about it too hard to be aware of it.

His mother, Tsunami, was really mad that he'd disobeyed her and run off after Haku.

His grandfather, Tazuna, was mad about that too, and furious that he'd got beat up and almost killed by Zori and Waraji. Then, as if all that wasn't bad enough, the boy had been pressed into service by the visiting mist-ninja who would not take 'no' for an answer and hadn't even bothered to ask.

The boss-lady ninja, Orimi, in charge at the time, had sent Aya to Inari's house to explain, but that hadn't softened the blow the boy received when he finally made it home – a full week after his disappearance from the markets.

It had been a tearful reunion at first, with hugs and kisses and fingers run through his hair, but that part hadn't lasted long. What followed after was hours of lectures and interrogation that featured questions that Inari had no 'right' answers to: _WHY did you disobey your mother?! WHY did you run off after a man you knew was dangerous?! WHY didn't you come straight home after you were attacked?! And WHAT were you THINKING?!_

It was all just a blur now: what a stupid and senseless child he was; how disappointed they were with him; how they could never trust him again, and so on and on.

Inari's explanations about having to go after Haku 'cause of what he did to his friends, Sasuke and Naruto, and what he'd TRIED to do to grandfather hadn't had the effect he'd thought they would. In fact, unbelievably, they'd made matters worse! Grandfather wasn't the least bit worried about Haku, not like he SHOULD be. The old man had spat disgustedly and waved his hand. 'You let me decide what and who to be afraid of!' is what he'd said.

After Tsunami and Tazuna were too tired to yell at him anymore they'd sent (or rather, sentenced) him to his room, there to remain until he turned thirty-five, or so his grandfather had decreed.

_Wow…_Inari had thought glumly, _'seems like a long time._

* * *

It had been all so different with the ANBU, the boy remembered. They'd really liked him, Aya especially who'd enjoyed talking to him, and treated him like a close friend. Eiji, Inari could tell, was really tough and had showed him how to stand and use his footwork and a twisting motion with the hip when he threw a punch. Yukimasa was nice enough, though a little stand-offish. He thought all kids were kinda strange and hadn't quite known what to say to him. Then there'd been the big guy, Toru. The older ninja-leader had cheered and laughed like a little kid when the others told him that this boy who'd walked in had seen Haku, and could describe in detail what he looked like. 

The Pack-Leader had turned all serious then as he'd told Inari that he'd have to stay with them for awhile until they were able to positively identify the renegade ninja. That had taken several days of Inari's looking through powerful binoculars at all the construction workers until at last he saw Haku again.

And there the Demon's Apprentice had been -- just another guy. That's what he'd seemed like. In such a different setting, he hadn't seemed like a ninja at all. He hadn't seemed like…a killer.

Inari stared hard though the binoculars and, for a moment, felt bad. The long haired, girly-faced shinobi had, after all, saved him from Zori and Waraji, who surely would have killed him as brutally as they'd killed his father. But then the kid thought again about his friends and how Zabuza had tried to kill his grandfather, and his old resentments and certainty about the fugitive returned.

Eiji, with him that day, had known already from the look on the boy's face that he'd found the subject of their hunt. Inari hadn't had to say a word. The ninja looked up through his own field glasses to check out his adversary. "So that's him, huh," the youngest ANBU offered coolly. "'Doesn't look like much."

Inari remembered looking up at him with an expression plain with conflicted emotions. Eiji had grinned and shaken him gently by the shoulder. "You did good, Inari, real good. I don't know how long it would have taken us to find him if it wasn't for you. You should be proud, kid. There's no telling how many ninja that guy's killed."

Inari, somewhat reassured, nodded.

The wiry, young ANBU crossed his arms and laughed. "Yeah," he'd said knowingly. "This is gonna be fun."

* * *

The boy sat alone now with elbows planted on the window sill of his room as he stared out at the ocean, cheeks compressed pensively between palms. It had been almost a week since his return home and still there had been no word about anything happening. 

Inari groaned as he shifted in the bright, mid-morning light, and let one arm fall flat. _They should have let me know something by now! _his thoughts churned. _Eiji told me he would. So what happened? Did they get him?_

After moping for awhile, the boy couldn't take it anymore. He'd been confined to his room all this time and was going crazy! He had to know. He had to see for himself if the Demon's Apprentice was still out there.

Following the impulse, Inari moved to his door and listened, then, hearing nothing, opened it and crept quietly down the stairs.

Grandfather, the boy knew, was sure to be at work but the thought of him made Inari pause and reconsider what he was about to do. The old man was really, really going to be mad if he snuck out.

_Him and mom,_ Inari pondered, _they're the only family I have!_

The realization weighed on him heavily. The last thing he wanted to do was make them mad at him again when they were still mad at him from something he'd already done!

Still, the idea of Haku running around free stuck in the boy's mind like a jagged splinter and slowly galvanized his resolve.

Quick and quiet, with young brows knitted, he went to the door and slipped out.

It took Inari awhile to find him.

Being dressed like all the others, Haku didn't exactly stand out from the crowd. Only his particularly slender shape and willowy limbs seemed to differentiate him at all from the other workmen. Even so, it was only because the fugitive was still in the same general area from when Inari had spotted him the first time that he was able to locate him again.

The boy watched the clever fugitive at work from the shadowed recesses of a covered walkway.

_How…?_ he wondered fiercely, _how come they haven't got him yet?!_

At an unseen signal, all the workmen began to set down their implements then head off for lunch.

Inari kept his eyes on Haku and gritted his teeth at how expert the assassin's disguise was.

_Look at him,_ he fumed as the young man took a deep drink of water, poured some over his hands to cool down, then carefully climbed down the scaffolds ladder.

_That can't be higher than eight feet! You could have jumped that easy!_

With Inari's ebony eyes on him the whole time, Haku strolled to the curbside. The ninja grinned then laughed as a dark-haired kid with a really big head, wearing baggy black shorts and an evergreen-colored t-shirt approached and handed him a thermos and a small, brown paper bag.

Haku nodded with appreciation then bowed, and the strange boy bowed low, almost reverently.

_What is this?!_ Inari gasped in alarm and disbelief. _Don't you know who that is?!_

Despite the unvoiced warning, the new boy followed Haku to a shady spot and kept him company while he ate lunch. Inari watched raptly as they talked, sometimes laughing and smiling, and other times very seriously.

After awhile, as the other workmen began to return, the two rose, bowed to each other and Haku went again back up the scaffold while the boy headed off.

Perplexed, and not quite knowing why, Inari followed him.

* * *

Beyond the noise and crowds of the construction sites, the big-headed boy wandered, zig-zagging back and forth over the wide, nearly empty roads. Casting surreptitious looks to his left and right, he suddenly brought both forearms up in front of his face, perpendicular to the ground and with fists clenched. In a second motion, he jabbed outward with his elbows, then dropped both palms down low and flat before striking forward with his back knuckles. 

The kid continued on like this for a little bit, then stopped cold. His searching look carried his face up, then left, then around, and around again until he looked straight back at Inari.

Inari's features shifted uncomfortably at being discovered, while the stranger's congealed with suspicion.

"Hey, kid!" the boy cried in an accusing voice whose pitch instantly set Inari on edge. "Are you following me?"

Inari 'muled up'. "No!" he objected, countering, "And so what if I was?!"

The kid lowered his gaze and marched ponderously toward Inari who waited for him, only now starting to appreciate that the boy he'd followed was older and bigger. But as the round-headed child came forward, his pace slowed and his angry expression softened.

"Oh, wait," he chirped, pointed at him and broke into a wide smile. "I know you! You're that kid from the bridge, Unagi!"

"Uh, Inari," Inari corrected him.

"Yeah!" the boy agreed then just stood there and grinned excitedly. "That was so cool how you got everyone together to fight Gato's gang and everything. I really wish I could have been there; I should have been there even if don't know what I would have done." His features pinched in thought. "But I'll be there next time, I promise! Hee hee, I might even beat 'ya!"

"Um…sure," replied Inari, somewhat at a loss for words.

"Oh!" the kid gasped in alarm then adopted a rigid, martial posture. "Please forgive my earlier rudeness. My name is Chuuya…Chuuya Tezuka," he offered politely then gave him a crisp, low bow.

Inari, speechless, returned the formality.

Chuuya looked at him, eyes brimmed with gleaming admiration. "I've never seen you out this way before. I kinda thought you lived _north_ of the bridge."

"Um, well, yeah, actually --."

"Hey!" the kid blurted excitedly, "why don't we hang out? I can wait to do what I was gonna do."

"No, that's ok," Inari returned awkwardly, raising his hands. "Thanks, but…I…I've really got to be going."

Strained silence fell as Inari's reticence took the wind from Chuuya's sails. "Oh, ok," the boy muttered dejectedly then turned to go. "I guess I'll see you around."

"Chuuya," Inari said, before the other kid had gone very far. "That guy, you know, the one you were having lunch with; the guy you were talking to?" Chuuya spun back and stared at Inari, who continued: "It's Haku."

Chuuya gulped nervously. "How did you --," he cut his own question short. The answer was obvious.

"Listen," Inari began again in bitter urgency, "he's a killer! You…you shouldn't go anywhere near him!"

"That's not true!" Chuuya, though rattled by Inari's words, shouted back stridently. "Not like you say it. Sure he killed other ninja, bandits and stuff, but they were trying to kill him too! He's…he's a good guy!"

Inari's face lit with shock. His dark eyes narrowed fiercely as his fists balled. "I don't care what he told you; he was lying!"

"You don't know that!" the other boy countered hotly. "You don't know anything!"

The two boys argued furiously, almost coming to blows, until both were out of breath and things to say. They just stared at each other for awhile until Inari turned away disgustedly and stalked off.

"Hey!" Chuuya cried as he followed him. "You're not going to tell anyone?" he asked desperately.

Without turning or even slowing his pace, Inari yelled back, "I already told!"

The kid's words froze Chuuya to the spot, his face frozen in horror.

* * *

Inari continued on, walking at a brisk pace, puzzled and hurt from his encounter with Chuuya from who he hadn't expected such a reaction. How could anyone fall for Haku's lies, he thought, when his awful history was so well known?

As distracted as he was, the boy couldn't help but notice the man's arm that stuck out from an alcove just ahead. It was kind of pale and discolored, bent sharply at the elbow and level with the ground, and rested atop a strange sort of sculpted box. While Inari watched, the arm's owner withdrew deeper into the alcove and it vanished from sight.

Curious, but on his guard, Inari angled his path away.

Suddenly everything went dark. In a whirl of motion his feet flew out from under him as gravity inverted and his face and head crushed against rough fabric.

* * *

"Now was that so hard?" said Shin to Zori and Waraji as he slung the wriggling sack over his back. "I told you – just watch the nest, and the rat will come out sooner or later."

Zori gave the former ninja a forlorn look, then nodded slightly and slowly. Given that both the pale bandit's arms stuck out from his sides and were strapped into complicated-looking clavicle splints, there was no other way it could look.

Waraji, with his head wrapped and wearing a trussed brace around his midsection, stared vacantly then startled. "Huh?"

"So are you gonna kill him or what?" asked Zori anxiously as he squinted and grit his teeth. The pain-killers were starting to wear off.

Shin, in faded ninja fatigues, gave him a glance. "'Fraid not. Juri wants the kid alive this time."

"What?" cried Zori, whining with disappointment. "Why?"

"Don't know, don't care." The mercenary raised an eyebrow as he looked past the two bandits. "Oops, look alive, 'gentlemen', we have a visitor."

All three turned toward the little boy, Chuuya, who stood a few feet away. "Hey!" the large-headed child piped and pointed at them, though his arms and legs trembled. "Let him go!"

Shin chuckled. "Goodness," he offered. "Look at this: another pint-sized do-gooder." An ironic grin crept over his face as his eyes swiveled toward his two companions. "Tell you what, if you guys can handle him, I'll tell the dragon lady you're worth something."

"I said, LET HIM GO!" the kid cried again – a sound that made everyone's teeth rattle.

"Get lost, you little brat!" Waraji yelled back as he advanced and shook his fist, but the sound of his own voice made his previously-concussed head throb.

Chuuya stood his ground though his knees quaked and he huffed for breath.

Zori laughed tentatively. "Yeah, kid. Get out of here before you get hurt!"  
But instead of running, the strange boy planted his feet then gathered his breath. Drawing both hands high in front of his chest, he curled them out and drew them up along the centerline of his body, then pressed both down in a smooth motion synchronized with his exhalation. A faint, almost unnoticeable, eddy of force rippled away from where he stood, stirring dust.

"What the --?" Shin gasped. "Where the hell did you learn that?!"  
Chuuya's hard stare burned a hole through Waraji as he shifted his feet and coiled his fist back. "NINJA ART," he bellowed dramatically as if reciting something he'd seen in some action movie, "CANNON FIST!"

Instantly, the boy shot forward in a burst of speed; hip, back and shoulder uncoiling, gathering power behind a single, all-out blow. His inexperienced fist slammed hard and off-target into the much-taller Waraji's right hip with the sharp, gristly crack of bone against bone. The impact knocked the man's leg out from under him and sent him spinning around in an off-balanced wobble, while his diminutive attacker flew past, lost control, fell and wiped out on the pavement. Over and over, Chuuya rolled limply before he came to a stop.

Shin stared after the boy and shook his head. "Unbelievable," he muttered and puffed out a breath. "So much for the Hidden Mist's 'secret' techniques.

Zori, not knowing what to do, stared in shock at Waraji, whose mouth hung open for a moment before he gripped his crippled leg with both hands and wailed in misery.

"Figures," the ninja hissed at them and fixed the two bandits with a sour look. "You guys are sht magnets, you know that? Sht just fking hunts you down like a damn Komodo dragon or something."

Shin then fell still and quiet as he looked around at the muttering crowd they'd started to gather. "Dammit," he spat. "Now we've stayed too long."

"You three," a man, a fisherman by the look of him, challenged them. "Just what the hell is this?"

"Yeah," affirmed another, "Let that kid go."

Shin looked around dubiously then glanced at his two companions. "Well guys," he intoned. "You're about to receive a crash course in the third lesson of Mist-School nindo. The first lesson is: always strike first. The second: if you're not cheating, you're not trying."

Waraji was still too 'out of it' to respond. Zori looked up at him, then gulped. "So what's the third?"

"Sometimes…you gotta take one for the team," Shin explained, then put his fingers together in a sequence of hand seals and vanished, bag and all, in a startling burst of smoke.

* * *

**Haku**

_Quitting time at last!_ Haku realized, and his heart rejoiced. After a full day of laying concrete block in the hot sun, it was about time.

Haku mopped his face and forehead with the dingy, torn hem of his t-shirt as he dropped his trowel off at the tool shed then made his way curbside to wait for Mari.

It was funny how quickly he'd adapted to the rhythms of his new life – rising before the dawn and working hard until the tortuous heat of mid-afternoon; looking forward to lunchtimes and his little chats with Chuuya; the wash of relief at getting to go home at the end of the work day.

More by far than any of those things, he looked forward to seeing _her_ again.

Even if the rest of his life was lackluster, weighed by a job he only tolerated because of the money, forced by circumstances to forgo his own name, and oppressed even at home by the tactless and intrusive Tezuka brothers, there was joy at least in the brief moments he got to share alone with Mari.

The young ninja's eyes spotted her at once through the crowd, now fully accustomed to her shape, the meter of her pace, and the distinct, dark color of her hair – different from a regular black – a detail that was plainly obvious to him now.

A heartfelt smile spread over his face in anticipation of her greeting, the sound of her voice, the expressions of her face, her smile, her laugh, the warmth of her hand, her arm around his waist. These were the things that made his days worth-while.

But then, like when the music suddenly stops with the sound of a needle skipping off the record, so did all those thoughts vanish – because this time, Jimon was with her.

Haku, though he remained placid on the outside, cursed silently to himself as brother and sister approached.

"Hi, Hiroo," Mari offered in a happy, yet apologetically-reserved tone.

Haku, having just been cast down into Hell's lowest dungeon where disappointment reigned and crushed all that stood before it, still understood completely and gave a forced, acceptant, smile in return.

"Hello, Mari," he replied, managing to sound merely amiable and nothing more. "Jimon," he added in a more neutral tone.

"S'up," the older teen grumbled carelessly, as was standard issue.

A frosty silence settled between the three, and it was not due to any of Haku's ninja arts, as they started to walk in the direction of home.

Jimon made it a point to occupy the center position.

"Oh, look, snow-cones!" Mari piped excitedly, then pointed at a vendor who'd set up her stall on the sidewalk. "You guys want one, my treat?"

"Please," agreed Haku while Jimon merely grunted, "uh-huh."

"'K, what flavor? Mint, right," she asked Haku, who nodded, then turned to her brother, "and…um…um…"

"Grape," insisted Jimon like she should have known.

"Grape, right, right," Mari agreed then skipped off toward the snow-cone seller.

She'd just started talking with the lady when Haku sensed Jimon shift his stance and weight. Of course he knew the punch was coming but, being incognito, he knew also the imprudence of doing what he wished – which was to parry it, redirect the energy, then hurl the older boy into the pavement at high speed.

_Hmm,_ the ninja mused as he savored the idea. _Yeah, that'd be nice._

But of course, that's not what he did.

Jimon's knuckles crashed into his upper arm. Haku rocked away from the blow, and so did not absorb the full force. He also directed some his chakra into the point of impact so it wouldn't do any damage or even leave a bruise.

"Ow," Haku protested weakly and rubbed his arm as if it hurt, though with something of a half-hearted effort. For an untrained person, Jimon's punch (although _glacially_ slow by Haku's standards) really was pretty solid. The annoyed ninja looked at Jimon, who turned away and folded his arms as if nothing had happened. "Ok," said Haku patiently. "What was that for?"  
"You know," the taller teen stated brusquely, then sniffed.

Haku waited, either for more to follow or for the answer to dawn on him out the clear blue. When neither event happened, he ventured: "No, actually, I have no idea."

"Yeah, you do," was the eldest Tezuka brother's response.

"No, please, Jimon," Haku continued. "Spell it out. I'm afraid I can be a little obtuse sometimes."

Jimon gave him what Mari called: 'the eat-sht look', undoubtedly in part to his unauthorized use of the word 'obtuse'.

"That's my sister you keep checking out," he explained belligerently. "Stop it."

Haku sighed and folded his arms, tapping his fingers against his elbows. "I am NOT," he asserted with cool emphasis, "checking her out."

"Uh-huh."

"Well I'm not," the young man reiterated then glanced away. _At least,_ he thought as he fidgeted uncomfortably, _I don't mean anything bad by it._

Mari hurried back with the three snow-cones, smiling and carefree, with not a clue as to the brief melodrama that had unfolded in her absence. "Here you go!" she sang, handing Haku his frosty, green-capped cone first, then giving Jimon his vivid purple one. Again, and probably for the best, the girl remained unaware of the tense looks that passed between the two.

_Ah, well,_ thought Haku as Jimon again shouldered himself between them. _I suppose he's just being protective, so I can't fault him too much. Then too, the great master said that loyalty to family is the source of all virtues._

The young ninja took a sample of his cone which, after having worked all day, tasted incredible – a flood of cold, sweet, delicious mint! He looked over to thank Mari, but was met with Jimon's brutal, inquisitorial stare-down.

_I'm really going to have to come to an 'understanding' with this guy,_ a peeved Haku resolved and slowly looked away.

The three passed along the streets in an imitation of civility, with Mari doing most of the talking. Haku had already written off this walk home. Mentally, he was already there, at the table, and eating tonight's offering. As great a ninja as Zabuza had been, Mrs. Tezuka was by far the better cook! With any luck too, Mari might be able to spend a few minutes with him if she were able to avoid her self-appointed praetorian and sneak into the basement sometime.

Out of nowhere, a voice cut through his speculation. "Hey, Iceman," it warned with a trace of latent threat. "I wouldn't go that way if I were you."

The ninja swallowed hard as his eyes cast around discreetly for the source.

They'd just arrived at the last major crossroads, and the flow of pedestrians was starting to thin. The right side of the street was just the blank faces of some old board-and-batten walled buildings, while the other was lined with shady, corrugated-metal roofed porches beneath which old people gathered at small tables to sip sodas or harder drinks while they played dominoes, cards, dice or mah-jongg.

"Yeah, you," the woman's voice affirmed coldly. "Who'd you think I meant?"

Haku drifted a pace behind Mari and Jimon and looked more intently. There among all the old folks, sat a young woman, dressed in black shorts and a grey and green camouflage-patterned tank-top. Her neon-yellow hair, dark at the base, was pulled up under a black, flat-topped cap. Her wide, mahogany face was fierce with intention as she set a small, black stone down onto the _Go_ board, then turned to fix Haku with a wily look.

The ninja approached slowly, warily. Years of experience warned him that she was schooled in the martial disciplines.

"Hiroo?" Mari's concerned voice called after him. "What is it?"

"Yeah, dude," Jimon's followed, much more harshly, "what the fck?"

Haku looked down at the stranger. "Who are you?" he asked in a serious tone.

"Juri," said she, boldly. "And I already know who you are."

Haku's expression shifted as he brought himself to full alert. "What do you want?"

"Hey, easy there, baka," she offered in mean-spirited playfulness. "I'm on your side, even if that part wasn't my idea." Juri shifted forward in her chair, poured her awaiting teacup full of steaming water, then eased back to await her elderly opponent's move. "Besides," the young woman continued cleverly, "right now, at this moment, it's not about what I want. It's about what you want which, I suspect, is to live longer than the next fifteen minutes or so."

Mari's eyes shot back and forth between her and Haku as she walked up. "Do you know her?" she demanded to know in a jealous voice while Jimon started to chuckle.

The young ninja held up a hand to them as his grey eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"  
Juri turned to look down the road and the field that lay beyond, then wagged a finger in that direction. "There're five animals waiting for you down there," she explained like a teacher to an inept pupil. "There's a boar, a horse, a rat, a rooster, and a great, big ape who doesn't wear a mask at all. Do you get what I'm telling you yet?"

Haku's placid expression broke and he gasped with realization.

"Thaaaaat's right," Juri went on. "They've been scoping you out for days now, just waiting to take you out. That little kid, Inari, remember him, the one you saved from Zori and Waraji? He snitched; told them all about you. It's just lucky for you, that we were scoping them!"  
The fugitive's head swam and he reeled unsteadily for a moment, then knuckled his forehead with an agonized expression.

"Oh my God," muttered Mari, who moved to rest her hand on the young ninja's shoulder. "Is she serious?"

Jimon stepped forward, bucking up. "What's going on?" he growled testily. "Hiroo, who is this chick and what is she talking about?"

Juri laughed and slapped her leg. "Normal people," she snickered in a confiding tone to Haku. "Ya gotta love em – freakin' clueless as hell; their empty little lives as delicate as a potato chip." The young woman reached into the cargo pocket of her shorts – a motion that brought Haku instantly alert, hands up and ready. "Down boy," Juri calmed him, as she took out a tiny scroll dense with glyphs, fluffed it up and dropped it in to her water-filled teacup. "Like I said: I'm on your side."

Haku's mind raced. Somewhere along the way he'd started to believe that the house of cards he'd lived in might stand forever. But the specters of his past had not forgotten; they would never forget nor could they forgive.

The scent of blood was in the air. This girl, Juri, knew all about it. How could he have forgotten so soon, Haku wondered, the familiar texture of the life he used to lead?

"I'm sorry about this, Mari," Haku offered regretfully as he took her hand. "But you should go." He looked over the older teen. "You too, Jimon, make sure she gets there ok."

"Uh-oh!" interrupted Juri, who leaned forward and pressed her fingers to her lips in a mockingly coy gesture. "Looks like the Rooster is feeling froggy! He rose with the sun and jumped the gun. I guess you're screwed now." Dark laugher gushed from her. "But then again, now we'll get to see if the Demon's Apprentice comes as advertised…or if it's all just bullsht."

The air gusted as the middle of the street erupted just then, suddenly occupied by a solid-looking vortex of wind and dust. When it settled and whirled apart, a man stood there – an ANBU in full battledress, from open-toed boots and fatigue pants, to his multi-pocketed, lightly-armored vest. The dense, mesh shirt he wore underneath hugged the rugged, rippling muscles of his arms. Even through his white, red and black zodiac, 'rooster' mask, you could feel the intensity of his stare.

"Hello, Haku," the mist-ninja greeted forcefully as he rolled his shoulders. "I've been looking forward to this for awhile now, so I hope you don't mind if we get right to it."

Jimon appraised the situation in a glance. "Oh, sht, are you really telling me this ahole's Haku?" he muttered with surprising self-control, then grabbed his sister before she could run to Haku's side.

All the old game players, looking on as the scene unfolded, glanced at one another then discreetly filed away.

Haku nodded at his challenger and raised his hands almost in a gesture of surrender, but moved slowly to the middle of the street. "Mari," he stated to the girl who struggled and fought wildly against her older brother's grip. "You should go."

"No way am I leaving!" her scream pierced the air. The sound of it was pure pain that wrenched the young ninja inside.

Haku's calm demeanor cracked apart. "You can't help me now!" he cried back, knowing that it wouldn't convince her.

In that moment, the moment when the fugitive was distracted, the ANBU, Eiji Tohei, attacked. Over the pavement he came like a flash of grey, too fast for the eye to follow. In his terrible wake, the air shimmered like a heat mirage and the street cracked from the outward pressure of the force he'd summoned. His fist, cocked back and ready to strike, rippled and pulsed with chakra energy as his charging strides carried him like an angry, vengeful god toward the surprised transgressor, the Demon's Apprentice, Haku.

* * *

_As always, reviews, comments, etc. are appreciated. I hope you liked that even though my chapter length's getting long again ;)._

_Hey, top! Stay strong, my friend, and I hope you're feeling better!_

_Until next time, -- Jonohex_

_(1) Lou Reed, The Raven, track four, The Valley of Unrest, C2003 Warner Bros. Records, Inc._

_(2) Johnny Cash, A Satisfied Mind, P2003 American Recording, LLC_


	9. Chapter 9

_Hi, everybody. Me again, with another what-I-hope-you-find thrilling installment. 'Hope you enjoy!!_

* * *

**Haku**

In that moment, the reality of Haku's surroundings took on a transcendent clarity that would have seemed truly sublime if not for the imminent peril. Behind him and off to his right Mari struggled furiously against her older brother Jimon's bear-hug grip, arms flailing as she cried out. To the young ninja's immediate right, beneath the porches shade, the mysterious young woman named Juri sat, drinking tea and looking on keenly with interest. What she wanted was not at all clear. Even though it was she who'd warned Haku of the ANBU's ambush, her motives seemed far from altruistic.

Since Zabuza's death, life had certainly become more complicated…by orders of magnitude more complicated! Strange new people had arrived upon the shores of his heretofore limited world all with their own puzzling and at times cryptic personalities, purposes and peculiarities that, despite how clever Haku often thought he was, the young man found himself unable to address in any way that did not leave him thoroughly mystified.

The fugitive's trained mind shunted the complexities of his existence away for the time being, with each person and each dilemma a constellation in the spinning cosmos of his thoughts.

The immediate concern was the man, the masked ANBU mist-ninja, sprinting down the street toward him, intent on killing him and certainly capable of doing so.

_Such speed!_ Haku realized with a shock as his adversary was upon him in a blink of an eye.

The fugitive's lean, left forearm flinched purely out of reflex and caught the oncoming fist behind the wrist as he started to evade, but it was too little too late to guide the blow harmlessly past him. Haku's block buckled under the terrible force before he could get himself fully out of the way; and the ANBU's shoulder, backed by the man's weight and fearsome momentum, crashed through his chest.

The fugitive gasped sharply at the crushing impact but managed to tag the mist-ninja behind the ear with a hooking, one-knuckled, 'phoenix-eye' punch as he passed.

Haku wheeled from the force of the blow which knocked him spinning violently backwards until he fell to a wobbly crouch by the curbside. His left arm tingled, swollen and burned, from the ANBU's chakra.

The Demon's Apprentice nursed his arm and watched as his foe, surprised by the counter, flinched and stumbled, but then quickly regained control and came to his feet, posture hunched, and rubbing his neck where Haku had hit him.

The young fugitive frowned. _He's strong!_ he realized. _That blow should at least have knocked him unconscious._

He considered for a moment that if he'd been wearing his normal accoutrements and weapons there would now be a senbon piercing through ANBU's carotid artery. The fight would be over; rooster-mask would be dead.

_Not that the observation does me any good now,_ the teenager thought.

"Nice," the mist-ninja called out to Haku in a pained, begrudging admission. "Good one." The ANBU then pushed himself to his full height, staggering only once, then slid the mask off his face. "My name is Eiji Tohei," he announced proudly. ""Just wanted you to know that."

Haku's eyes narrowed at the young mist-ninja's chiseled, 'recruitment poster' looks. "Your name," he answered coolly, deliberately, "means nothing to me."

Eiji took the reply in stride and chuckled. "I guess it's up to me to change your mind!"

The ANBU sprang high, the profile of his body dark against the bright, sunlit sky, and let fly a volley of shuriken to cover his approach – an expected tactic. Haku dodged, weaving in and out between the missiles which hissed past him in silver flashes. Right behind them came Eiji, who flicked his hands into which kunai knives appeared as if by magic. The mist-ninja leaped through space, flying straight at the fugitive with arms extended and the razor points of his knives leading the way.

The fugitive sidestepped deftly and the ANBU flew by, rolled to his feet, spun back and came at him again. Haku blocked Eiji's right and left stabs, then grabbed the wrists and locked the mist-ninja's elbow; one of his knives fell from his grasp, clattering as it hit the pavement. Adjusting his position, Haku whirled and threw Eiji but the ninja spun in mid air and landed on his feet.

Still, the technique allowed Haku the time he needed to roll away, grabbing the abandoned kunai as he went.

The two squared off, each now similarly armed. Haku's expression was baseline calm; Eiji's – mocking, taunting confidence.

"You don't fight bad…for a queer," Eiji disparaged.

Haku grinned nonchalantly and let the remark pass at first, then pressed the fingers of his free hand to his lips and blew him a kiss.

Eiji again attacked, this time more cautiously, and probed Haku's defenses with a series of quick thrusts before he attempted to close. Even the slightest mistake would mean death at the other's blade. Up and down the street the two ninja fought – a deadly, fast-paced game of strategy, position and flowing combinations. Sharp steel flashed and rang; clothing and skin parted then blossomed forth with thin streaks of red.

Increasingly, Eiji pressed the attack as his long-sought-for quarry yielded, but then suddenly Haku slipped the ANBU's thrust, snaked his weapon arm around the mist-ninja's and pinned it tightly to the side of his body.

Around and around they circled, locked together, but it was Eiji who was surprised as he found out that he was _not_ the stronger of the two but only an equal.

As they slowed to a stop, momentarily stalemated, Haku looked him in the eye and raised his free hand. The mist-ninja sneered at first, knowing his adversary could not reach across his own body to hit him, but then his face lit with alarm as Haku instead began to form a series of seals.

"You…" the ANBU muttered, wide-eyed, "you can't make seals one-handed!"

Eiji's eyes darted at the mists that began to form around him, whirling together into shapes that resolved, coalescing gradually, into exact duplicates of the fugitive he faced.

"It looks like one of us is in a lot of trouble," Haku intoned in a lilting, matter-of-fact, and slightly feminine voice, then tightened his grip on Eiji's arm as he tried to pull away. "But I suppose you would consider it an insult if I asked you to simply surrender."

Eiji's lips pressed together in a single tense line. "It'll take a hell of a lot more than a stupid water-clone jutsu to take me down!" he barked back.

The ANBU pulled and twisted sharply as he positioned himself to reap Haku's legs out from under him, but the wily fugitive released his hold and leaped away, letting his jutsu-created doubles close in.

Gritting his teeth, Eiji gathered himself then leaped to the attack. One after the other, the water-clones fell before his onslaught – his slashing, stabbing blade and powerful tai-jutsu, while the real Haku watched and waited, leaning against the wood planked walls of the adjacent building.

In less than a minute the last remaining clone burst apart like a water balloon, Eiji's knife having flashed across its belly, and the ANBU stood alone.

Haku nodded, knowing all along what the result would be. But it was ok. His enemy had spent more of his strength, and Haku had altered the terrain and expanded his options.

Eiji, Haku noticed, was in phenomenal condition but was starting to gas. The mist-ninja lowered his brow and fixed Haku with a hateful stare as he danced his blade from hand to hand.

"I won't lose to you," the mist ninja insisted, smiling grimly; his eyes hard and unwavering. "After all, how could I live with myself?"

Haku drew a breath and let it out. There was nothing he could do but end this unwelcome confrontation the way he'd ended so many before. This time, he could allow himself to be moved by softer emotions as he had with Naruto and Sasuke. This time, again, he would have to kill.

The fugitive refreshed his grip on his kunai while he formed seals with his free hand. A wind arose at once, cloaking him in its whirling fury. Haku surged forward, letting the demon wind carry him like a living tornado but, as he lashed out with the fatal blow, Eiji evanesced, vanishing suddenly from sight.

_Gen-jutsu!_ Haku realized at once, feeling pin-pricks of terror ripple up and down his spine. _But where…where'd he go?_

The young ninja flung himself aside even before the rapidly expanding, tell-tale shadow of a figure plunging straight down at him revealed the answer. A line of pain streaked down his shoulder-blade as he went, just a moment before he heard the pursuing ANBU land behind him with a loud, stomping splash in one of the puddles the defeated water-clones had left.

Haku hissed at the sickly sensation – the change in the surface tension across his skin; the warmth he felt trickling outward, seeping into his t-shirt and dribbling down the back of his leg. He leaped away, veering and weaving to avoid the pursuing Eiji, but when he turned the ANBU was right there almost on top of him.

If the fugitive had done anything thus far to tire the mist-ninja, any evidence of it had vanished. Eiji had drawn blood, and the sight of it, red and flowing against Haku's skin and clothes had revived him. The ANBU surged forward, sending bursts of chakra to his feet to spring at his prey with blinding speed. He slashed savagely then pumped the point of his blood-stained kunai while Haku evaded desperately.

As he fell back under Eiji's onslaught, an observation occurred to him, drifting slowly and coolly across his consciousness which was otherwise occupied. _Rhythm,_ it said, _he's attacking in rhythm._

Seizing on the idea and hoping it was right, Haku changed his grip on his kunai, dodged the first thrust then timed the second. When it came, the young ninja sidestepped to the ANBU's inside and slashed across his knife hand.

As the kunai dropped from the mist-ninja's crippled grip, Eiji's eyes widened in shock. Haku spun and pumped a quick, hammering stab at the ANBU's face, but it was only a feint to draw his attention away from the real target. When Eiji planted his feet and committed to block high, the fugitive instead dropped to a crouch on the water-slicked pavement and plunged his blade through the ANBU's foot.

The shocked mist-ninja froze for a moment as Haku leaped, coiling into a tight ball as he spun, then lashed out. The back of his heel cracked against Eiji's jaw, sending him stumbling backward, twisting around and around.

Haku continued his spin all the way around as he began his descent, making hand signs as he went and letting his kicking leg slash across the puddle beneath him. As a curving, rooster-tail of water shot up, the young ninja landed in a stance, arms extended, with the fore and ring fingers of his left hand pointing squarely on target.

"Ninja art," he intoned to focus his concentration, "ten-thousand needles of death."

At the utterance, an arctic wind blasted around him, capturing the water, shaping then flash-freezing it into thousands of razor-pointed shards which exploded through the stunned Eiji, taking him off his feet and slamming him into the planked wall of the adjacent building.

* * *

Furious motion ceased.

* * *

An eerie calm fell, trapping everything in its unearthly spell like insects trapped in amber. 

Where, only a scant moment before, Haku faced a bitter, implacable enemy intent on his destruction, now there was only another young man like himself – a prisoner of circumstances, a prisoner of his own choices.

Eiji hung there, pinned to the side of the blood-splattered building like a specimen butterfly. His arms, legs and portions of his chest and belly were peppered with daggers of gleaming, crystalline ice, each oozing and spurting little crimson rivers as he twitched weakly.

The ANBU's face, once so brave and sure, now paled with shock and uncertainty. His eyes blinked rapid-fire as his breaths continued in short, ragged spasms.

* * *

A voice behind Haku rang out excitedly, startling him. "ALLLL RIGHT!" the strange young woman, Juri, cheered as she leaped out of her seat and came off the porch to congratulate him. "That was slammin', Iceman!" she cried, eyes fiery with glee. "Haha, I guess the rumors, ladies and gentlemen, of the Demon's Apprentice's demise are just a bit premature." 

Haku stood and stared at the stricken Eiji then turned toward her.

"And that," Juri added as she grinned at him widely and set her hands on her hips, "is exactly why we want YOU working for us."

The young ninja looked past her, then around until his grey eyes came to rest on Mari who looked back at him with a blank expression, her features haunted and empty. Jimon's arms were still encircled around her, though she no longer resisted.

Haku turned away. _Surely she must have known,_ he thought, but it brought him no comfort.

"One thing though, tough guy," criticized Juri with a cold grin. "You said, 'ten-thousand needles of _death_', not 'ten-thousand needles of hurt-someone-real-bad'.

The ninja looked at her and shrugged faintly, not comprehending.

The dark-skinned blond cocked her head toward the ANBU. "Lil' bastard's still alive," she commented snidely. "I guess that flak-jacket he's got on saved him from the worst of it, but that's ok. I'm more than happy to pick up your slack."

The woman's face snapped toward Eiji as she brought both claw-fingers hands to her chest, one over the other, in a chakra-generating movement called 'Lion Embraces the Ball'.

"Hold on," muttered Haku, who touched her lightly on the wrist.

"What? 'You gettin' soft on me?"

"Save your strength," he answered. "The others are coming."

Juri looked up and around at the surrounding streetscape as she listened intently, and sensed the hostile energies. "I feel them now."

No sooner than she'd said that then a pair of figures materialized before them. The smaller of the two, tiny and lithe, a girl in ANBU fatigues and a white and black zodiac mask that bore the abstracted features of 'horse', went immediately to Eiji while the larger lumbered forward to challenge Juri and Haku.

Haku straightened. This could be none other than the ANBU Captain, the one Jimon had described: the big, fat ninja who'd killed fifty bandits by himself with his 'sick' jutsus. Looking at him now, the fugitive realized that Mari's brother had done him little justice. The man was huge! Though not all of him was 'quality' pounds, there was more than enough there to warrant a reflective pause.

His frightening face, snarling and scruffy, with eyes outlined and magnified by heavy glasses, made him seem more like a guardian lion, rampant and angry.

Juri brushed a blond strand off her ear, turned to Haku and gave him a leering smile. "You know what," she began in a calm voice that was pregnant with menace, then turned her sights back to the bloody, perforated Eiji and the masked woman trying to aid him. "I just can't pass up a chance like this!"

The young woman's fingers flew through a series of seals as she skipped forward with her arms crossed over her chest, hands tensed into claws. As she landed, Juri's fingers tore the air, sending forth ten lashing tendrils of energy at the trapped and wounded Eiji. The force of her chakra crackled like lightning, scorching and scarring the pavement as it went rippling forth.

Haku drew back in shock then pulled his arm protectively over his face as the big Pack-Leader spun before his two team-mates and interlaced his fingers. A solid wall of water and mist materialized from nowhere and rose up to intercept Juri's devastating jutsu which crashed into it like a fiery comet into a frigid and unyielding sea.

_She's insane!_ Haku realized with a start. _And the rest of that ANBU's team is here._

A quick, practical calculation informed him that there was no point in staying. The fugitive back-pedaled a step and turned but was brought up short at the sight of the hunter-team's fourth member – another man in a mask, this one expressing the artistically-rendered visage of a boar.

The mist-ninja looked at him, his fingers forming a seal, and Haku clutched at his chest. He couldn't breath; his heart had stopped! Streaks of light and dark popped and flashed through the young ninja's vision as he commanded the power of his chakra to keep himself mobile and conscious. Haku's hands moved convulsively from long held habit to where he normally carried quivers of senbon then, realizing he still carried Eiji's kunai, coiled his arm and flung it at the ANBU with all the strength and speed he could summon.

Boar-mask flinched at the last second, dropping away as the knife shot through space right through where his neck had been, and broke his deadly jutsu.

Haku, now released, took in a deep, desperate breath then jumped back as something small and fast whistled by so close that it brushed his skin in its passage. Looking after it, the young ninja saw the shiny object bank sharply then come corkscrewing back at him.

_Shit!_ he hissed to himself as he dodged then ducked, only now seeing the fishing line-thin monofilament that trailed behind it; visible only in places where it's undulant curves caught the sunlight.

_Good tag-team move,_ Haku judged, grinning mirthlessly. _One paralyzes while the other kills._

He was moving now, running at high speed at the boar-masked ninja.

_ANBU Number Five's controlling his weapon from a distance, _the fugitive thought, _running chakra through that wire like an umbilical. But he probably can't control it well enough to use close to his own team-mates._

The mist-ninja skipped aside, circled then rushed at Haku, dropping down at the last moment to take him down at the legs. The fugitive sidestepped left, pivoted sharply on his lead foot and hammered hard across the ANBU's face with his right hand while capturing an arm with his left. Haku spun, trying quickly to dislocate Boar-Mask's shoulder; the man caught on and tore himself away but the young ninja gave him two snapping lead-leg instep kicks, one low and one high, as he went.

A flicker of light by his feet told Haku to move, and he stepped out just in time to avoid being snared by Number Five's looping wire. The ninja jumped aside, jumped again, ducked, then ran for the relative shelter of the metal-roofed porch as the whizzing dart coiled and struck at him every step of the way.

Without stopping, the teenager wove around one of the wood columns, ducked under the trailing monofilament then cart-wheeled back over it. Along the porch he went, sliding over then shooting under tables and whipping around columns while Number Five's weapon followed him like an angry, living thing.

The boar-masked ANBU, meanwhile, shook off the effects of Haku's kicks and ripped his mask off. Oddly enough, beneath it, his face was completely normal – a slightly sullen-cheeked countenance topped by short, light brown hair. The one thing out of place was the thin trail of blood that wept from his nostrils, and dripped down along his lips toward the corner of his mouth.

The mist-ninja reached up, wiped it then gave his reddened hand a harsh, critical glare. "Damn!" he barked scornfully; his calm features souring into a grimace as he drew his sword, a straight, double-edged 'djin', and charged.

The unmasked ANBU leaped into the porches shade, his blade singing through the air as it whirled just over the ducking head of the Demon's Apprentice. Recalling his weapon, the mist-ninja turned the point back around with a deft flick of his wrist and thrust, but Haku floated back just enough to let the blade pass then grabbed the over-committed arm and pulled. With the swordsman now unbalanced, the fugitive's hand shot over the ANBU's eyes, latching under the nose with his thumb, then extended with a sharp twist that buckled the man whose feet shot out from under him.

Haku had no time to celebrate however, as ANBU Five's dart soared after him. The young man danced away from it, spinning and twisting again around columns, jumping and running up the walls and across the ceiling, using his chakra to cling.

As he came down, landing on a gaming table, the recovered, now-maskless mist-ninja lashed at his feet. Haku hopped backward down to the floor then kicked the edge of the table hard, sending it flying at his attacker who batted it aside and rushed at him. Haku fell back, confounding both the ANBU and his as-yet-unseen team-mate's weapon as he dodged nimbly while throwing anything he could get his hands on in their paths – bottles, glasses, plates, chess and 'go' boards, tablecloths and chairs, all went flying only to be shattered or shredded by the ANBUs slashing swipes.

Kicking up a sawhorse-bench and seizing hold of its legs, Haku blocked the swordsman's lunge with the lower part of the seat then crashed down on his wrists hard with the upper. The young ninja's riposte with the butt end slammed under the mist-ninja's chin. Haku spun then, following him as he staggered back, whipped the bench around by one leg and bashed the man across the side of his head with the seat.

The fifth ANBU's dart leaped forward immediately at the opening in Haku's guard, but the ninja pulled his improvised weapon back quickly, blocked, and felt the impact as the dart struck and stuck.

The hunted teenager took a moment to turn his bench over and saw for the first time in detail what it was – a metal bird of sorts, a sparrow, streamlined in gleaming steel. Its pointed beak, imbedded deeply in the bench's lacquered wood, and razor-edged wings were clear indications of just how deadly a weapon it was. From its tapered back end, a thin wire ran, a metal trail following back along every inch it'd traveled…around columns and weaving through furniture like the web of some sort of overly-industrious spider.

While the fallen ANBU groaned and rubbed the side of his head, Haku looked away in search of his fifth opponent. All the while, the sparrow-dart jerked and twitched as it tried to free itself.

Casting his eyes around, Haku found him…no, her, at last.

The kunoichi, who wore a zodiac 'rat' ANBU mask, crouched atop the parapet of a building across the street, sitting on her heels and holding the tail end of a long reel of wire in her gloved hands. Haku could feel her cold gaze upon him but, for whatever reason, all he could do was grin back.

After all that fighting, he was breathing heavily but it was not labored breath. In fact, the young ninja felt energized, calm but alert.

With the bench kept firm in his grasp, Haku looked across the way for any sign of the 'horse' kunoichi and wondered if her ministrations to Eiji had been successful. Though the young mist-ninja had tried to kill him, to the utmost of his ability, it still seemed regrettable to Haku if he were to die.

A sound like thunder drew his glance, and Haku looked off in the distance toward where an old building listed suddenly then fell amidst a cascade of clashing energies – water and lightning.

_Oh, right,_ he remembered as he recognized the familiar music of dueling jutsu, _Juri and the ANBU captain._ He harkened closer, somewhat perplexed. _How in the world can a girl like that, no older than me, take on a veteran ANBU pack-leader? Such things are not unheard of, but--._ The answer came to him then as he remembered the scroll the strange girl had dropped into her tea.

_Chiromancy?_ he considered for a moment. _That means she has a master helping her in all this. No genin level ninja, or even a chunin, could master such an advanced school of jutsu. Even to attempt it requires the penmanship of a Zen scholar._

Shaking his head, Haku turned toward the battered and beaten ANBU swordsman, who again struggled to his feet.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Haku advised him coolly, but the ninja attacked anyway.

Blocking upward with his bench, Haku fired a no-shadow kick into the man's stomach then released his hold just as the sparrow-dart pulled again. The bench flew from his hands and clattered off the ANBU's face and shoulder, sending him sprawling back down.

From clear across the way, Haku could hear Ninja Number Five gasp then shout out apologetically: "Yukimasa!"

Again the ANBU rose, and Haku couldn't help but be impressed by his durability. His face was bruised and cut, and he still reeled from the effects of that kick to the guts.

"Yukimasa-san," asked Haku abruptly. His unexpected question jolted the man. "Is my death really so important to you?"

The ANBU reigned in his gasping breaths while behind him the sparrow dart thrashed about, trying to dislodge the bench that was still stuck fast to its beak.

"Do you really have to ask?" he hissed back agitatedly, his composure yielding to frustration. "How many mist-ninja have you killed, hundreds? You can't just walk away from that! We won't let you!

"Then too, we know what happens if you get away – more war, more bloodbaths. Isn't that what Momochi trained you to do? Isn't that who you are: the Demon's Apprentice?!"

'Masa's hands joined, forming a seal, and Haku averted his eyes. There was no way he was going to let himself get caught twice by the same jutsu!

But no, this was something different. When the fugitive's eyes flashed up, there were now five more ninja surrounding him.

Haku grinned and shook his head for a moment before he realized the difference. These were not shadow-clones like Naruto had used, or even water clones like he and Zabuza used which had only a fraction of the original's chakra. These were actual duplicates, equal in power to their creator!

_Good jutsu,_ Haku thought, clearly impressed. _I kinda wish I knew that one._

But even though he found himself outnumbered, the young ninja was not at all worried. He was calm and ready.

Over the last month and a half, he'd been beaten, almost killed and taken to the very precipice of death. He'd languished in bed as he'd recovered, then took on a life apart from training and fighting – a 'normal' life, or what passed for one.

Haku had lost the last fight he'd been in. He'd lost to Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi. No, that wasn't quite true. He'd lost the fight, but they had not beaten him.

After Zabuza had failed to realize his dream, they'd both gone on from that defeat incomplete. They'd come close to the magnificent summit only to be cast down. Though The Demon of the Hidden Mist had survived, the knowledge of what he'd almost achieved hung on him like an anchor. In serving him, Haku couldn't help but share his loss, his anguish. They were both beaten well before they ever crossed paths with that team from Konohagakure.

In an almost absent gesture, Haku grinned, picked up a tall glass of ice-water left on one of the small gaming tables, took a small sip then threw it in Yukimasa's face. The mist-ninja's duplicates attacked, thrusting and slashing with their swords, but it seemed as if they moved in slow-motion.

It had taken his battle with Eiji for Haku to shrug off the effects of six weeks of lethargy from his limbs, the restlessness from his mind, as if accumulations of dust and cobwebs were starting to fall away. He'd had to return to battle's fiery cauldron to feel again how well he took to it; to feel the potent power of his ninja ancestry flow in his veins and to imagine those all-but-forgotten generations of shinobi cheering him on, praising his name in the afterlife.

And maybe, just maybe, he hoped, his late master would be among them.

Zabuza Momochi, the Demon of the Hidden Mist, had discovered him, taught him and trained him, but he hadn't created him. Haku was not just a ninja made, but a ninja born.

As the fight ensued, Haku felt at last that he'd returned. He felt like was…home.

Haku skirted a stabbing blade, guiding the flat of the blade past him easily with his palm, then cracked the clone in the eye-socket with the bent back of his wrist. Though they outnumbered him, it was as if he could do ten things before any of the ANBU could complete even one.

He'd entered a state he'd come close many times to but never fully experienced before – a profound, effortless calm, a moving-meditation where he was both inside and outside himself simultaneously.

The air started to chill, surprising Yukimasa and his minions. White vapor gushed from their mouths and nostrils, and steamed off their sweating limbs and the tops of their heads as they chased after the fugitive. The gamers' abandoned glasses started to frost on the outside, while the beverages they contained crusted over with ice. From nowhere, out of the clear, sunlit sky, snow began to fall.

Snatching up two pairs of chopsticks from the next table, Haku spun toward the original Yukimasa who was easily detectable, for he was the only one of the six that was wet. Deflecting his blow, Haku poked him in the hollow of his throat with the mated chopsticks, making him gag. The young ninja then closed quickly, punching him just below the breastbone, then striking upwards and sticking his chopsticks up 'Masa's nose – one in each nostril!

The ANBU yelped and rose up on his toes as he staggered back, with Haku guiding him along until he was pinned against a post.

The jutsu-clones rushed after him but Haku gave him a cagey look, forced the utensils in a little further then demanded: "Call off your dogs."

The mist-ninja's face grimaced as he gasped, blinked repeatedly and groaned in desperation. "Release!" he croaked, at which all his duplicates vanished.

At that moment, the sparrow-dart, having finally freed itself, shot forward but snapped to a stop inches from Haku's head. The young ninja turned to look at it then turned back to Yukimasa.

"I hate resorting to puns," he confided, raising a dark eyebrow, "but your friend is…out of line."

The young fugitive drew a breath then let it drift out into the cold air while his captive wriggled in discomfort.

"I asked you before if my death was really that important to you, and you told me," intoned Haku as snowflakes fell over both their faces, clinging for a moment then melting away, "but it was not what I expected. When you said I can't walk away from what I've done, that makes perfect sense to me. You're right. I agree. I can't just start life over, ignoring the last eight years.

"But the rest of what you said is _ridiculous_." Haku leaned closer to look the man in the eyes. "You're afraid of me; of what I'll do? How can that make any sense when even I don't know what I'm going to do? How can you be afraid of something that hasn't happened; that may never happen?"

The sparrow-dart strained against its tether, desperate to fly on. Its repetitive struggles made the taut wire twang like some exotic one-stringed native instrument. The slender, young ninja spared it a critical glance then slackened his grip slightly.

"Your fear is your problem, not mine," Haku began his tense explanation, "and you have no right to make it mine. I have enough of my own in case you hadn't noticed."

With that, Haku withdrew his probing chopsticks, cracked the ANBU across the jaw with the point of his forearm, came back with a back-fist, then whirled around with a spinning reverse-crescent kick that blasted through the side of the mist-ninja's head and flipped him inside-out.

With the fourth mist-ninja finally subdued, Haku paused to take a deep, collective breath. The cold taste of the winter air braced him. He knelt then, grabbed Yukimasa by the edge of his armored vest and dragged him off the porch and out into the street.

Not too far away, geysers of mist clashed with fiery plumes – as if somewhere a volcano was vomiting raging rivers of lava into the ocean.

Haku paid it no attention as he walked though the thin veils of snowfall. Instead he dropped the fallen fourth mist-ninja unceremoniously and looked up at the fifth ANBU who froze warily at the sight of him.

"Madam Rat," he called out to her; his voice neutral but his expression firm with defiance. "If you've come to kill me, and will accept nothing less then please…let us continue."

* * *

_Ok, I kinda thought I'd end Ch. 9 there, not wanting to overestimate my limited readership's appetite for looooooong fight scenes. This is 'Naruto' not DBZ, right? It's also a departure from my earlier three points of view per chapter format._

_Me? I love fight scenes, I can't lie!! If I won the lottery, I'd write them all day long._

_Anyway, please let me know what you think!_

_--Jono'_


	10. Chapter 10

**Haku**

From atop the weather-beaten parapet, the fifth ANBU stood and stared down at the young, dark-haired fugitive like an eagle from her aerie. The kunoichi's white-masked face, haloed by black, breeze-blown hair, shifted for a moment from her recalcitrant prey towards her fallen team-mate, Yukimasa, before it returned then locked on with fresh, raptorial determination. The woman shifted slightly as she worked nervous tension from her limbs then clutched her reel of wire tighter in her gloved hands.

Haku, having defeated two of the mist-ninja's brethren, drew a restful breath but was careful to keep ready. From the winding, well-traveled hallways of his mind, Zabuza Momochi's snarling, predatory voice urged him to attack. _'Be first, Haku!'_ it cried then coached,_ 'explode and overwhelm, let your movements flow! Let those who fall before you testify to the power of a true shinobi!'_

The young ninja's late master's words resonated in harmony with that innate portion of himself he'd inherited – a clan ancestry that reached back deep into unknown history, but Haku remained still, preferring to keep his own council.

Out of the clear summer sky, snow continued to fall as nature itself responded to the power of the renegade ninja's flowering chakra and his genetic influence over the elements of water and air – his kekkei-genkai.

Against the pure white billows, a drift of soggy ashes from Juri's ongoing battle with the ANBU captain drifted over the street, painting it with thin brushstrokes of black. The sounds of their conflict echoed through the air in harsh, percussive chords that made the ground shake and the windows rattle in their frames.

The Demon's Apprentice narrowed his impassive gaze as a chant began to rise from his adversary – a low, guttural growl.

The ANBU's zodiac mask hid the look of concentration on her face, her snarling expression as she gathered her energy. The fugitive's sweat and snowmelt-moistened brow rose then as he felt the flash of her chakra, almost visible, as it coalesced in her hands and surged down the wire of her weapon: the sparrow-dart.

With his eyes, Haku followed the monofilament along where it wrapped and twisted around the columns and furniture on the porch behind him, arriving at last at its end where the steel, razor-edged bird still floated in mid-air, pointed at him as resolutely as a compass arrow's pointing north. Slowly, bit by bit and inch by inch, it started to strain forward. The furniture, bound and snared by the wire, jerked under the force of its swelling pressure then jumped. Tables and chairs hung suspended in space for a moment before the thin, tensed cable snapped and cut through their legs and backs like a guillotine blade through dry kindling.

The sparrow-dark leaped forward, speeding toward Haku's heart, but again stopped short – its passage snagged by the heavier timber columns its trailing coils had previously encircled.

The young ninja flinched guardedly then looked back at the ANBU who roared as she sent forth another huge wave of chakra into her weapon. The sparrow-dart quivered furiously as the porch began to creak; the sharp wire biting deep into the weathered timbers.

In a flash, the columns gave way, sliced through like grass before the scythe. Haku's eyes widened; he whirled as the steel bird shot past him, cutting easily through his t-shirt and leaving a red streak across his chest.

The porch remained in place for a moment before the sundered supports gave way and the overhang crashed down, filling the air with the sounds of snapping wood and shrieking metal.

The sparrow-dart, sensing victory, swooped back then abruptly stalled as its master lost site of her prey for a moment amidst the swirling snow mingled with the cloud of dust kicked up from the porches collapse.

_There!_ The weapon wheeled, rising like an incensed cobra, then pierced at Haku's black-haired head when it appeared again through the chaos.

Up above, the mist-ninja thrilled as her sparrow-dart's razor beak struck home, embedding deeply into the fugitive's eyeball with a sharp crack. The end was at hand. She could feel it quite literally through the vibrations passed back along the long length of wire to her sensitive hands like a spider sensing through its web.

Not wishing to waste a critical moment or give the hunted ninja too little credit, the masked woman commanded her sparrow-dart into action.

The weapon's cord whipped around Haku's body, snared his arms and legs, and coiled tightly around his neck and trunk. In the blink of an eye, the monofilament constricted sharply and sliced clean through its trapped victim whose head topped from his shoulders while his body fell into heaps of bloodless, cylindrical parts.

The ANBU startled, knowing now something was wrong. In an instant she realized that what her sparrow-dart had cut to pieces was only a water-clone, but frozen into ice to distract her.

High up on the parapet, with the rest of the building's corrugated, metal roof sloping down to a distant gutter, the Demon's Apprentice materialized beside the kunoichi; the edge of his hand thudded against her temple. The startled ANBU rocked back adroitly and spun into a one-handed cartwheel, kicking at her assailant's head with both feet in blindingly-fast succession.

The fugitive blocked hard then lashed out with his leg, sweeping her supporting arm out from under her before she could finish her move. Continuing its upward arc, Haku's heel shot straight up then vectored down hard into the kunoichi's midsection before she'd even landed.

The lady ANBU, stunned and breathless, dropped off the parapet to the building's angled roof and started to roll down, powerless to stop or slow her descent as she picked up speed then vanished off the edge.

Knowing she would recover quickly enough, Haku declined to follow her.

A quick mental inventory suggested to him that, assuming it was a standard five-man team that harried him, all the ANBU had been accounted for. It was time to go, to disappear.

_Where are you going to go?_ the young ninja asked himself, and for a moment thought of Mari. With a sweeping glance he looked for her, but she and Jimon had gone. _Forget her,_ common sense advised him. _Shinobi have no loyalty except to their codes, they have no families, no friends…they do not --,_ Haku paused and grit his teeth, unable for a time to complete the thought, -- _love._

As he composed himself for a jutsu and raised his left palm to his chest, edge out, the young ninja looked out from his elevated vantage and couldn't help but stare at the swath of destruction Juri and the ANBU leader had carved through the fabric of the city, leaving in their wake a foreboding landscape of craters and ruined buildings that had been, paradoxically, both burned and drowned.

From the outskirts of their battlefield, the poor citizens of Wave Country looked on with a mixture of emotions playing over their distressed and anxious faces: fear, awe and wonder.

Somehow it all seemed so familiar.

Haku gulped, moved by the sight, and once again found himself at Zabuza's side as together they flowed inexorably, like messengers from hell itself, up the steps of the blood-drenched, body and wreckage-littered portico of the Mizukage's canal-bounded palazzo in the Village Hidden in the Mist.

The recollection lasted no more than an instant, a glimpse, a single snapshot, and in many ways a culmination, of the last half of his young life. It was a moment he'd never dwelled on before but it resonated powerfully within him now, haunting his thoughts.

_'More war…more bloodbaths,'_ the ANBU, Yukimasa's accusations gonged unbidden in his mind. Following behind it rose Mari's father's caustic observations: _There ain't one of them ninjas that's any damn good,_ the man had stated in his blunt, sure voice. _'If they're not killin' somebody, they're not happy. That's just how it is.'_

Haku shuddered, his hands coming up along the smooth features of his face. Is that really all the last eight years of his life had been for, all the tortuous training, the dangerous missions? Is that all those lost generations of his ancestors amounted to?

_'…heartless killers,' _Mr. Tezuka's voice continued, answering him, '_you wouldn't find a decent human being among them.'_

"He's right," the ninja despaired, giving way to doubt. "He was…right all along."

_Everything had been so clear with Zabuza at the center of his universe, commanding it, giving it order. To draw his master's hard-earned praise, to help him fulfill _his_ dreams, that alone had been enough for so long._

_Only toward the very end, those last few weeks of Zabuza's life, did the cracks begin to show. For no matter how the Demon of the Hidden Mist had explained it, there was no way to make assassinating Tazuna seem like anything more than what it was: the contemptible murder of a spirited but otherwise helpless old man, a grandfather, an engineer with dreams of his own, and for nothing more than a handful of coins._

_What sort of task was this for the man who'd almost seized control of the Land of Water and held it in his hands, the Demon of the Hidden Mist who people only dared to speak of in whispers, one of the Seven Legendary Swordsmen?_

_Haku was certain that Zabuza had sensed the incongruity from the start. And though the disciple remembered the fearsome jonin had no sympathy for men like Tazuna, or mankind in general, the swordsman could always distinguish between an act that proclaimed the presence of a great spirit from one that decried a lowly one._

_With the very foundations of his soul undermined by fate and a bad choice made out of what seemed like necessity, Zabuza never stood a chance against the likes of Kakashi Hitake. The reoccurring thought that Zabuza had known that too, made Haku tremble where he stood and a sinking feeling settle in the pit of his stomach. Which was worse – death at the hands of a worthy adversary…or life as a petty tyrant's errand-boy? In the world of his late master, there was no need to ask…for the question answered itself._

And what about me?_ Haku wondered hollowly._

_Ever since his master's death, he'd felt like he was floating somehow, expecting at any moment to waken and find everything again in its proper place though he knew it was impossible. At some level the young ninja understood that all men die in their time and the world continues on, fundamentally unchanged. How could it be then that his world seemed so different, with dangers he never recognized before looming at the fringes of his senses, materializing from nothingness, while all that once was solid and sure melting, failing and giving way?_

Even in his deeply distracted state, Haku sensed what was coming and braced himself as something fast and huge struck from behind and sent him flying from the rooftop.

_Idiot!_ he cursed himself hotly, near to tears from frustration_. Standing around all confused! The battlefield is no place for reflection! You know better then that! Focus!_

Riding the force of the impact, the ninja righted himself in mid-air and landed in a crouch on the street below.

Up above him, a monstrous eel composed entirely of water swam through the air, its body as long and thick as a tree trunk. Like the creature it resembled, the glistening apparition darted at Haku with maw opened wide before he could rise.

Unable to move away in time the fugitive shot out his hand, concentrated his chakra and split the oncoming eel along the edge of his palm as it came. The jutsu-created beast rushed around him in two halves, then scattered, dividing spontaneously into a gnashing horde of smaller eels each the size of the young ninja's leg.

Haku grunted in surprise as he found himself overwhelmed. The eels swarmed him, knocked him to the ground and writhed over his back, gnawing, worrying, tugging and chewing like jackals on the cut Eiji's kunai had put in his back.

Crying out in pain, Haku thrashed and bucked as he tried to escape, but there were far too many of them – dozens of dozens. The ninja twisted sharply, clawing and kicking, then gasped at the sight: all those eels, all clear as the purest glass, but with thin crimson clouds now billowing through them.

The black-haired teen threw himself into a sideways roll, came to his feet and sprang away to gain some distance but the school of jutsu-monsters, packed too densely even to see through, sped effortlessly yet relentlessly after him. There seemed to be more now, with the scores multiplied into legions!

Haku flew, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, as the eels streamed behind him in close pursuit. Spinning away from their surges, the young ninja dropped down to the street but felt like he'd arrived at the bottom of the sea – with his slender body the only tasty and edible thing in it as the eels crested over him then crashed down in a great wave.

As they came, Haku flew through a series of one-handed seals and again summoned his demon wind which wrapped him in its whirling fury. The summed weight of his watery opponents almost overwhelmed him despite his jutsu's tornado-like strength.

Hundreds spent themselves against the fugitive's fortress of rushing wind, their essences broken apart and scattered into blasts of mist and spray. On and on they came until at last they'd slowed the spinning stream of air and it drifted apart, leaving the haggard Demon's Apprentice to contend with the rest by hand.

All around him, Haku struck and slashed savagely with bladed palms, gathered fingers, phoenix-eye punches, and the bony backs of his wrists, but the eels came on undaunted for they had no lives to lose.

At last, Haku's fist crashed through the last of the eels which exploded into a splash of water. Reeling and exhausted, he kept punching away, having been lured into rhythm by the rapid-fire movements until he fell to his hands and knees, breathing heavily as he rested.

Groggily, he looked up at the sound of oncoming footsteps.

Juri, herself scarred and soaked from her pitched battle with the ANBU captain, glared down at him in an expression of extreme vexation.

"Hey!" the brawny girl barked; hands on her hips. "I could use some help, y'know!" She scowled, took a quick look behind her then grabbed Haku by the waistband of his pants and hauled him to his feet.

The fugitive lurched unsteadily, his vision starting to glaze, as he looked up in time to see the ANBU's giant captain alight not half a block away from them. The man loomed up, big, round and unshaven. Thick, black-framed glasses made his furious eyes seem huge and penetrating.

"Time to go!" Juri informed Haku anxiously then pulled him until he stood beside her in a thin puddle made from dispelled eels.

The large mist-ninja scowled fearsomely and pulled his huge, knobby fist back by his ear as he sprang high into the air with a trajectory plotted to come right down on top of them.

Juri made an expertly-woven sequence of hand signs, and suddenly the puddle in which she and Haku stood turned fathoms deep.

The world went blurry as Haku vanished beneath the water on a plunge straight to the bottom, wherever that might be. The girl beside him, Juri, with teeth flashing white, raised her hand high, middle finger stuck up straight and proud – the very last part of them to pass from the world above.

Casting a final upward glance, the young ninja reached toward that world. Though there was danger there it was the place where Mari lived, Chuuya, Maceo, and the rest, and he did not wish to leave it. Haku's fingers clawed towards it feebly; the departing bubbles of his gushing breath racing up through his fingers. As the streaming light began to fade, strange sounds gonging in his ears and water pressure crushing his sinuses and eardrums, he saw the ANBU pack-leader land and strike a blow against the rippling, transparent surface which blossomed with a thousand spider-web cracks.

* * *

**Chuuya**

From the dark, calm and blissful depths of unconsciousness, synapses suddenly started to spark and fire as the boy's eyes popped wide open at the horrible smell that assailed his nostrils, reaching way up his sinuses and penetrating deep into his young brain.

He gagged and flinched, then began to whine at the dull, throbbing pains he felt all over his body. His right hand burned with cold but was otherwise completely numb…and when the youngest of the Tezuka brothers looked over, he found it in a wide, shallow bowl, buried in layers of wet cloth and ice cubes.

"Chuuya!" his relieved uncle Maceo's calming, familiar, basso voice greeted him through the flood of competing memories. "Hey, you're back," the man reassured as he put the stopper back in a vial of smelling salts.

"Uncle?" the kid replied in a soft, dazed whisper, then tried to sit up on the worktable but Maceo's callused, paint-stained hand stayed him. "What…what happened?"

"Well," Uncle answered a little uncertainly. "They tell me you were in a fight with some bad men, Zori and Waraji." He shook his head, then fixed his nephew with a stern look. "I can't imagine how you could ever do anything so profoundly stupid, but --."

"What's wrong with my hand?" interrupted Chuuya who looked around his uncle's cluttered basement studio / Haku's de-facto bedroom as if for the very first time in his life.

"It's broken," the retired doctor informed him testily, "pretty badly too. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen --."

"How'd I get here?"

Maceo glowered at him, frowning deeply with building impatience. "If you let me finish one damn sentence, I'll tell you!" he bellowed then paused deliberately to make the child wait. "Thankfully some of the men who saw what happened know your father and brought you home after you got knocked out."

Chuuya pouted then blurted anxiously, "But what about --!"

"Hold on, hold on already!" his uncle again asserted himself. "The men grabbed Zori and Waraji, I guess they were pretty-well beaten up to begin with, and found out that they'd been sent to kidnap Inari. After that, they went off to tell Tazuna and turn over the two bad guys to those ANBU nin-jers."

The round-headed boy inhaled sharply. _The ANBU!_ he thought with a shock then looked toward the window and saw the fading light. "Haku!" Chuuya yelped franticly. "Where's Haku; did he come home?!"

"Uh, well," Maceo, caught off guard, sputtered then started to answer, "no, not yet."

"Uncle!" his nephew cried, cheeks reddening and eyes wide with emotion. "They know! I know they know!"

The man looked at him curiously; brow knitted as he scratched his untrimmed beard. "Shh," Maceo prevailed soothingly with upraised palms. "Calm down now, just calm down. Who knows what? What are you talking about?"

"The ANBU!" shrieked Chuuya who threw up his hands in dismay, showering the room with cold water and sending ice cubes bouncing over the floor. "They know about Haku; Inari told them! I got to go. I got to tell him!"  
"Whoa!" Maceo cried and took hold of the boy's left arm. "Even if it's true, Chuuya, there's nothing you can do. And you could really get hurt getting involved. You've already broken your hand; there's something else wrong with you too that I'm not sure yet what it is. Your vital signs are off, and there's no way you should have been unconscious for so long."

"But, Uncle!"

"No!" the man shouted harshly, at which his nephew shrank back. "I'm sorry," Maceo began again regretfully. "I like him too, but there are some troubles you can get into that no one else can help you with. This is something Haku's got to deal with on his own."

The boy sniffled, breathing hard, while the young features of his face wriggled with furious thought. "I have to help him!" Chuuya shouted forcefully at last, then flung himself off the table before Maceo could restrain him.

"Chuuya!" his uncle barked at him angrily. "Get back here!"

The boy jumped to the center of the room then stopped dead. Giving Maceo a serious look, he brought his left palm to the center of his chest and held it there, edge out. His face fixed with a look of concentration.

"What the hell's that supposed to be?" said his uncle when nothing happened.

"Dammit!" Chuuya cried in shrill frustration then pounded up the stairs.

Maceo heard the boy's galloping footfalls above him clatter a path all the way to the front door, the shriek of its hinges, and then the loud slam.

All he could do was close his eyes and shake his head.

* * *

**Toru**

The ANBU pack-leader walked with a scowl fearsome enough to clear people from his path half a block away. His kept his pace measured as he held the front end of the collapsible stretcher upon which the wounded and unconscious Eiji Tohei lay, clinging to life, while the battered but still ambulatory Yukimasa carried the back. Aya walked by her patient's side, huddled over to keep a careful eye on his condition.

Tension emanated from the mist-ninjas' battle-weary leader like heat from a kiln.

"Toru?" Orimi asked delicately after studying his face, "are you alright?"

The big ANBU's eye twitched as he considered a sour response but thought better of it. None of what had happened was her fault. "I've been better," he settled on with an enforced calm.

Orimi frowned sympathetically. "It happens sometimes," she ventured, "things go sour. You know that."

Toru's jaw tightened. He flashed a fierce look as he growled angrily, "Eiji…was…early."

The kunoichi nodded slightly. "Yes," she agreed, "yes, he was. But…maybe," the ANBU added weakly in her junior subordinate's defense, "he had a reason. Maybe it had something to do with that weird girl in the hat."

The Pack-Leader's eyes narrowed to slits. "Uh-huh, and maybe Eiji just _had_ to test himself against Haku." His voice rang like a prosecutor addressing a courtroom. "Maybe he thought he could take him alone, or does that sound too unlikely? But, ok, I'll bite – let's say he had a reason, a real good reason. What _should_ he have done?"

That last question was purely rhetorical. Every ANBU knew the answer; was supposed to know the answer.

"Delay and confuse the target until back-up can arrive," Orimi recited.

"Exactly right," the tired chief asserted brusquely. "'Delay and confuse', not challenge the target to a one-on-one duel to see whose dick is bigger. Isn't that right, Orimi, or did I miss something in the ANBU training manual and my thirty f-cking years of doing this sh-t?!"

Ugly silence filled the gap left in his remark's wake until Toru hissed a breath and shut his eyes. "'Sorry, Orimi. I understand you're trying to be helpful, but right now I'm beyond it."

"It's not your fault," the woman answered without recrimination.

The big ninja chuckled grumpily. "Of course it is. Who else's could it be…his?" asked Toru who cocked his head behind him toward the pale, prostrate, heavily-bandaged and medicated Eiji. "He's a stupid, punk kid who knows just enough to be dangerous, and I'm an ANBU Pack-Leader who's supposed to know better. I'm supposed to know who I can trust to do their assignments. Hell, I'm the one who recruited him in the first place. Now look at him. I'm responsible, if anybody is, and to top it off -- Haku still got away."

The Pack-Leader fell into a spell of solemn reverie, then pointed out: "All together we would have taken them. As it was, they called the shots – Haku and that girl. We divided ourselves and they were more than happy to conquer."

"Yeah, well," Orimi allowed, somewhat guiltily, as she flexed her sore shoulder, "our Demon's Apprentice didn't have much trouble 'conquering' me. I was a damn disgrace out there, so if there's blame to be had, I'll accept my fair share." The woman winced then cursed under her breath as she thought about it. "My sparrow-dart was a toy to that kid," she lamented bitterly. "He shrugged off 'Masa's jutsus and even Aya's Stalking Eels."

Toru nodded appreciatively. Her report came as no surprise. "That 'kid' was Zabuza Momochi's sole disciple student for eight years," he said, then added for emphasis, "_eight years, Orimi!_ Few people in this world ever survived _eight seconds_ in Momochi's presence under any circumstances, so that should tell you something."

Orimi frowned, not at all comforted by her boss' explanation. "Who do you think that girl was?"

"No clue," the mist-ninja replied bluntly. "If Momochi had had a second apprentice, I think we would have known about it before now. She's well-trained though, not a ninja as such, but familiar with our arts. She certainly knows how to fight and use chakra."

"The Tiger-Fist System, I noticed," Orimi agreed.

"She was plenty strong too," the big man attested, "and kept right up on me so I couldn't unload on her with any of my higher-powered jutsus. But a lot of the energy she was using wasn't hers; she'd been…augmented somehow. I could tell."

Orimi looked up at him, her professional interest peaked. "Augmented? How do you mean?"

"Well, you know," Toru reminded her, "like some of those weirdoes we come across once in a blue moon. Maybe she's a cheval for some powerful spirit, a ghost or demon, or maybe she's able to use a jutsu that expands her life-energy artificially like opening chakra gates."

The kunoichi nodded with understanding then fell silent.

Toru wet his dry lips then looked around warily at the low, shabby buildings and passers-by. Now would be the perfect time for Haku and his partner to attack. His ANBU team was beaten all to hell and walked in a group right down the middle of the street, almost begging to be killed.

"It could've been a lot worse," offered Orimi. "Eiji's still alive, we all are, and Aya's got him stabilized now."

Toru shook his head. "Just dumb luck -- fools and angels."

Beyond the tops of the little one-storied buildings and metal-gabled houses, the blue sky was beginning to deepen. Passing gulls and cormorants swooped and banked, offering their sporadic birdcalls to the ocean breeze. Toru looked toward the late afternoon sun to mark its descent, squinted then looked away as if the orange ball had become an eye, accusing him with its illuminating stare.

"I really messed up, sending everyone in to save him," the ANBU mused in a harsh voice as he pushed his glasses up and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Bad tactics."

Orimi shrugged. "Technically, yes," she allowed differentially, "but --."

"But, what?"

"Not everything's about tactics," she said with a faint smile, "even for us."

Toru blinked then grimaced. Storms gathered in his eyes at being let off the hook so easily. "We could have had them dead to rights if I'd have given up Eiji. Damn it, even a novice knows when to sacrifice a piece to win the game. It's basic!"

The kunoichi gave him a cross look, softened though by a familiarity that had taken years to build. "Toru…I know I speak for us all when I say that we prefer you as you are. We all know this is a contact sport. We knew that from the first day we joined the ANBU, but we also know no good can come from anyone who holds our lives as cheap."

"Orimi is right," Aya piped from behind them in an as assertive a tone as either had ever heard from her. "None of us could have expected what happened." The young kunoichi's brow knitted pensively. "I think that…I would rather accept our failure to kill Haku than trade any of our lives for him. As long as we're together, all of us, I'm confident we'll get him next time."

Trailing behind the stretcher, Yukimasa nodded in agreement. His jaw was broken, so he didn't feel much like talking. Not that he ever did that much anyway.

"There, you see?" said Orimi with a wry grin, then waxed philosophically, "And here it is -- the end of the day and we all get to go home, even if we are a little worse for wear. That's important too; I remember you saying so."

The woman's ramblings pried a faint, fleeting smile from the ANBU Captain as they continued their journey.

"I'm running out of time," Toru admitted quietly – a rasping whisper.

"You're worried about Rahaman."

"That wild goose chase Aya sent him on won't delay him long. The big bastard must've figured it out by now."

Orimi glanced away. "Do you really think the Mizukage sent him with a warrant for your execution?"

"I don't know what the hell else it could be. He ain't delivering me a pizza, that's for sure."

"Well, I mean, then we really don't know…," the brunette began half-heartedly, trying to sound hopeful.

"Orimi, you know our Mizukage as well as I do. What else do you think he's going to do with a big-mouth malcontent like me, especially in the wake of Zabuza's revolt?"

The big ninja blew out a breath then, oddly, started to chuckle, but subsided after only a moment.

"What was that all about?" Orimi inquired.

Toru gave her a weary smile. "Just thinking…about how close we came to having to bend our knees to 'Lord' Momochi. I guess Haku'd be a viceroy, magistrate or something, maybe even counselor." His expression turned sour. "Shoot, we might be better off under new leadership."

"You know that's not true! Would you stop being so bitchy," she blurted as she looked back at him, then felt compelled to ask: "Did Zabuza really get that close?"

"I wasn't in the Mizukage's palazzo that night, but people I've known for years were. They told me it came down to a moment of time and a little, itty-bitty bit of space." Toru held up his hand with the thumb and forefinger almost touching then squinted through the tiny gap. "That was all there was between our dear leader's neck and the Demon of the Hidden Mist's zanbato."

"No!"

"Yeah," Toru continued with a dismissive wave, "I know. That's a little different from the 'official' version of what happened, but what the hell. A win's a win and a loss is a loss, and history is written by the winner."

Orimi shook her head and shivered, preferring not to think about it. "Are we going back to The Junk?"

"Yup, unless you've got a better idea," said Toru with a sigh. "There isn't a proper hospital in the whole damn country, let alone any medical nin besides Aya."

"True. Good point," said Orimi who started to grin, happy to change the subject. "You know, I'm almost beginning to think of that place as home. We hardly ever get to stay anywhere for very long. I hate to say it but I'm looking forward to seeing that seedy, run-down dive again."

"Me too," Toru confessed, "I could use a drink."

"That's the spirit," Orimi bolstered, "you need to appreciate the simple things in life sometimes. A drink, yes, and a good night's rest too!"

By the time the ANBU team from the Village Hidden in the Mist turned down the last block that lead to the docks they were in slightly better spirits, considering the circumstances. All at once though, they fell silent then drew gradually to a stop.

"What is it?" asked Aya who'd been busy tending to the injured Eiji, and hadn't paid attention to much else. The young ninja craned her head to peer around Orimi and Toru then squeaked a gasp as she brought both hands to her face.

Up ahead, packed in and around The Junk's open air patio, a mob of impatient, stern-faced men awaited them. All carried weapons of some sort, an improvised collection of axes, pipes, sickles, sledgehammers, bats and harpoons…even a spear-gun or two.

With a practiced glance, Toru judged their number at around two-hundred.

Yukimasa yelped incoherently.

Orimi's mouth widened with shock. "G-d dammit!" she objected stridently as she raised a fist. "Just what the hell do these a—holes want?!"

Toru's chest rose and fell with a great, all-encompassing breath. "And to think my momma wanted me to be an actuary," he remarked off-handedly, glanced back at his team with eyes his glasses made look big and bulgy, then nodded as he acknowledged, "She was right."

* * *

_Hi, I hope you liked that. Here's a quick note to thank everybody who added my story to their favorites and C2s. I appreciate cha',_

_--Jono'_


	11. Chapter 11

**Mari**

Close to the edge of a low, rocky promontory, Mari sat and stared out over her knees at the surf – a deep, infinite blue flecked with foamy crests and rippled with bright ribbons where its rolling surface mirrored the late afternoon sun.

A dense cluster of thickets and thorny acacia trees shaded and shielded her from view from the ridge above while an old naval marker, a simple, weather-worn obelisk of white-painted concrete, towered off to the north.

_Haku…_the lean, black-haired girl thought again in deep introspection, but the emotions that accompanied the fugitive's name swayed uncertainly. _Just what is it about him?!_

Mari remembered with vivid, crystal clarity the first time she saw him, lying on the gravedigger's cart, bloody and still beside the form of his slain master. Life in the Land of Waves was hard and this was not the first time the lone Tezuka daughter had seen dead bodies.

Normally such sights engendered in her a somber, reflective mood, but that time had been different. _His face,_ she recalled, picturing him in her mind once more. _He was so beautiful, so tragic…like a fallen angel._

Mari rolled her eyes at the callow notion and shook her head reprovingly, shattering the dreamy spell the remembrance had cast over her. _Nobody's an angel in this world,_ she reminded herself, _especially not him!_

The ocean wind picked up for a moment, stirring through her hair. In the sky above, seabirds banked and wheeled as they responded to the change.

The girl knew she was being unfair, maybe, even though unfair was exactly how she felt like being. After all, she'd known who and what Haku was from the start; her brothers had all told her of the young ninja's exploits: his many gruesome battles; the lives he'd claimed; and how he and his master, Zabuza, had almost killed the Mizukage and turned his fabled palace in Kirigakure into an abattoir so horrifying that even veteran mist-ninja could hardly bare to enter it after the two had finally been forced to withdraw. How then could she be surprised at finding out that what she'd never doubted was true, really was?

Mari grimaced. It wasn't as simple as that! Hearing stories about terrible battles where blood flows and people die is not the same as bearing witness to one, not the same thing at all!

A great wave crashed against the cliff's face down below, making the rock shiver from the impact and sending up an eruption of mist and spray. The girl closed her eyes and let her tan, freckled face lift toward its cooling drizzle and salty, elemental scent. This was one of her favorite places to be alone and think – here, where the land met the open ocean.

It's location was one of the few things she'd been able to keep secret from her numerous brothers, _Far too many if you ask me_, she thought sourly, and a village where everyone minded each others' business far more carefully then they minded their own.

When her dark eyes opened, they turned toward a visiting sandpiper which spared her a curious glance before it raced off. Smiling briefly at the bird's caprice, Mari's gaze wandered along the coastline then drifted up toward the old naval marker.

It had been there forever, or so it seemed, built to help passing ships orient themselves. And though the sea drew closer to it every year, battering at and infiltrating its foundations, it was not yet ready to surrender.

Mari, unable to bear distraction any more, turned back to the matter at hand.

_So what was this whole last month? _the girl asked herself. _Was staying with us just part of his plan to hide out until the ANBU got tired of looking for him? Was he just playing a part; not just with mom, dad and my brothers, but with me too?_

_Probably,_ she concluded with a disgusted sigh. Deception was a ninja's food and drink, at least, that's what everyone said. And that 'everyone' included people who'd studied the subject a lot more than she ever did.

_How could I be so dumb?!_ Mari's thoughts railed bitterly. As the girl considered this, she suddenly felt sick – her limbs convulsed, her cheeks flushed and she almost wanted to wretch. _I should have known better, I guess._

Though young, Mari was certainly aware of the concept that ugly faces belonged sometimes to those whose hearts were golden, while pretty faces sometimes disguised those whose hearts were black.

Then too, living in a household packed wall-to-wall with boys had taught her practically from birth that even the most callous and awkward of them could be incredibly charming and convincing when they wanted something. It was like a faucet they could turn on or off, whenever it was convenient.

_But…_she allowed at last, her harsh verdict dissolving into a sea of second-guessing, _is that Haku? I mean, he's not…well…not like normal boys._

Mari cringed at the brutal summary, however apt, but knew herself well enough to be mindful of her own innate pessimism – an inclination to always assume the worst. With everyone around her poor and desperate most of the time, she was rarely wrong.

_Still…_

Mari had watched the battle on the street unfold, for what seemed like a long while, between Haku and that mist-ninja, Eiji. She remembered how her heart sank at seeing Haku almost killed right there in front of her, and then again, when the ANBU had managed to get behind him with his knife. In a flash, though, Haku had turned things around and beaten him using a ninja art, a strange and terrible power called jutsu.

She'd seen too what had happened when that scary-looking girl, Juri, joined him, and how she'd gone after the ANBU captain while Haku's brutal fight with those other two ninja ensued.

Shortly after that, Jimon, who'd been as entranced by the spectacle as she, noticed the danger they were in then slung his protesting sister over his shoulder and fled.

By the time Mari had wrestled herself free, Haku had gone, along with the ANBU and that weird girl. Mari had spent futile hours looking for him, but knew from the start it was pointless. There was nowhere she could figure out where to look for him that his hunters wouldn't.

_And just who the hell is this Juri person, anyway!?_ she fumed with surprising intensity. But that was a whole separate, yet integrally-related issue.

_So is that how it is…Haku's a liar AND a killer?_

Mari thought back to the time they'd spent together, desperate now for an answer. Even added up, it hadn't been very long; not nearly long enough to really get to know someone. But those hours had really meant something to her, those little moments here and there – the walks home from work; talking in the basement.

Again she came back to his face – that haunting image of him in her mind, pale and beautiful.

_Love at first sight?_ Mari hissed with disbelief. _How could that be? It doesn't make any sense. How can you love somebody on sight? You can't really know anybody like that! It takes months, years. Otherwise you only know what they look like, what you think they're like under the surface._

Mari sat, tried to still her thoughts and listened for awhile to the entrancing rhythm of the waves below – at the long, peaceful, languid lulls when the gentile surf caressed and lapped the shore, then suddenly, the thunderous interruption of a breaker spending itself in collision.

The uncertainty -- that's what really made things intolerable. Haku had gone and there was no way to tell if he would ever be back. At this moment, there was nothing Mari could do to find out how he really felt. Maybe she would never know.

_So…what 'cha gonna do about it?_ The question, which took her by surprise, made her grimace with distaste.

It was exactly like something Jimon would say: no deliberation, no reflection or analysis, no delving into the deeper meanings of her situation, just a brute-force sledgehammer-and-shoehorn demand for decisive action…to wit: '_what cha gonna do about it?'_

Mari's eyes narrowed to slits. _Stupid boys,_ she thought acidly. _I've lived with them so long, they're in my head!_

But the question returned, this time in her own voice. _So…what are you going to do about it?_

Somehow the girl knew that unless she put forth an answer, even something quick and made-up, that the same stupid refrain would repeat over and over in her mind until she told herself something or she went completely crazy.

_Do you love him?_ the question rose, and again that feeling swelled in the pit of her stomach. Mari closed her eyes and nodded reluctantly.

_Do you love him enough to risk being made a fool of?_ This question hurt more and hit harder, but the girl sucked it up and again she nodded.

_Then that's it. Wait and see._

Breathing a sigh, Mari Tezuka picked herself up and took another long look toward the horizon where the setting sun met the blue sea in a blazing river of light.

The decision she'd come to bolstered her, though it was neither satisfying nor comforting.

Preparing herself for the journey home, Mari started off, climbing up toward the ridge above.

* * *

**Haku**

The walls were stark white, freshly-painted concrete block, and the big, rectangular windows on the outside wall were a grid of closely-spaced, rusty steel mullions in-filled with textbook-sized panes of glass. Though the floor was bare concrete, it was smooth and clean. In an earlier day, the room might have been an office suite but the way it was furnished now suggested a Spartan but comfortable apartment. A small, round table flanked by two chairs sat in one corner, while a wardrobe stood in the other. The middle of the room was occupied by a futon, the frame of which could convert between a couch and a bed.

Haku knelt on the floor close to the window, bathed in its light, with his knees rested on a folded towel that served as a cushion, while the doctor Juri had called Dokonjonosuke finished up tending to the wounds on his bare back.

The man summoned to treat the wounded ninja didn't appear to be that old, having dense, brown hair, dull eyes, and an incurious sort of expression. He'd kept strangely quiet too, having said nothing more to his young patient than he'd had to. Whether this was from fear, distaste, or per some instructions the surgeon had been given, the ninja couldn't tell.

Whatever shortcomings as far as a 'bedside manner' were concerned, Dokonjonosuke was capable enough, thorough, and had brought with him a salve that seemed to 'weld' skin back together. After Eiji's knife, the rat ANBU's sparrow-dart and the horse ANBU's eel jutsu, this was exactly what Haku needed.

Once finished, the doctor simply packed up his medical bag and left, leaving the somewhat confused teenager all alone in the strange room.

Rising smoothly to his feet and wearing only a towel, Haku went to the window, resting a hand on the inoperative radiator hunkered below the sill. By all he could gather, he was on the third floor of some sort of factory building that had not been used in some time.

In the courtyard of the 'U'-shaped complex below, a contingent of men trained using practice weapons. The young ninja could tell from their attitudes and almost-artless movements that they were mercenaries – not driven by the pursuit of martial excellence for its own sake or some other deeply compelling purpose, but inspired only with as much passion as they were being paid for.

Haku couldn't help but scowl. Even if it wasn't these men specifically, it had been men just like them who'd killed Zabuza – not fairly by any means, but by spearing him in the back after his harrowing fight with the leaf-jonin, Kakashi.

Toward the back of the courtyard, at the base of the 'U's cup, sat an elegant, immaculately cared-for garden composed of trained shrubs, geometric flower beds, and winding gravel paths all centered around a pond stocked with fish.

_What now?_ Haku thought in appraisal of his situation as he turned back to survey his chamber. He had no idea.

At once, he thought of Mari – a spark of painful recognition that forced his eyes closed and drove the breath from him in a slow, seeping exhalation. The girl had seen what the ninja hoped she never would. He need not ever ask her what she thought of him now, that look on her face had been enough.

_Maybe it's better this way,_ Haku summed up and bit his lip, knowing it would take far more than that to drive her far from his thoughts. _What were you going to do,_ he thought critically, _take her with you on the run away from her family and friends so she could share your fugitive's life? Or give up your heritage, training and everything you've ever been to live near her in her parent's basement, praying every day that your many enemies wouldn't find you?_

A door that was narrow even for his slender proportions led to a bathroom that had a small, tiled shower. Deciding to avail himself of it, he went in, turned the handles then stood beneath the steaming water and tried to think about nothing.

Once refreshed, Haku toweled himself dry and went to the wardrobe. Whoever his host was (and it was abundantly clear that Juri was not the mastermind here) had surmised his need for a surgeon, seen to furnishing a room he gathered he was intended to stay in, and disposed of his torn, soaked and blood-stained t-shirt, soggy boots and jeans.

It followed then that if there was a wardrobe, there would be fresh clothes in it.

Haku, not sure what to expect, rested his hands on the handles and pulled the lacquered wood doors open. A full length mirror hung on one leaf, while on the other…

The ninja's mouth fell open and his breath stopped in his chest.

On the other leaf, displayed nicely, hung the uniform he'd worn for years – a knee-length, short-sleeved robe of muted jade-green trimmed in tan, a brown, turtle-necked shirt and baggy, black hakima-style pants. Close to the opening for the neck, rested a white ANBU zodiac mask – the same, exactly the same, sort he'd worn what seemed like a lifetime ago; the same one he'd worn when he and Zabuza almost killed the Mizukage and seized control of the country, the same one that had been smashed to bits by Naruto Uzumaki's enraged fist on a bridge not far from where he now stood frozen, eyes wide.

Haku's hesitant fingers reached toward the mask as if uncertain of its existence. Making contact, they took tentative hold of it and brought it up before the young fugitive's face. Almost paralyzed by the power the too-familiar object had over him, Haku forced himself to put it back, then perused the wardrobes other contents.

In the big, bottom compartment at his left, were some fitted vests, lined with pockets and quivers full of senbon throwing-spines. Haku grinned, then withdrew one of the long, steel needles. His hand responded at once to the feel of it, and the ninja sent it spinning around and around between his dexterous, practiced fingers.

On a small shelf above he found various grooming accessories, a hairbrush, comb, lip gloss, nail kit and polishes in an assortment of colors. A pang of remembrance coursed through him as he selected a deep green; his favorite color.

On the clothes racks, he found an assortment of shirts, pants and…_dresses_.

Haku gulped then picked his way through the intoxicating selection of solid colors, geometric patterns and florals, elegant evening wear, quarter-shoulder, puff-shouldered, and triple-knits.

Taking one, he held it against his body and looked at himself in the mirror appreciatively. He always had been beautiful…as a girl. Even now with his long, raven hair cut a bit shorter, his slender waist infinitesimally thicker due to Mrs. Tezuka's home-cookin', and his smooth-featured face and long arms tan from working in the sun, Haku's distinctive, undeniably-feminine grace remained undiminished.

The ninja's grey eyes flickered up warily. Something wasn't right. No, the dress was fine; that wasn't it. He held no doubt that he'd look truly amazing in it, but that wasn't the problem.

_Whoever's in charge here knows me awfully well,_ Haku considered, reappraising his situation and realizing the depth of his understatement, _whereas I know nothing about them._

He looked again at his reflection and sighed.

_And_, he added, knowing he should know better,_ a shinobi should not allow himself to be moved…so deeply by inanimate objects._

"Sorry," Haku said to the dress then put it back, opting instead for loose-fitting, cloudy-grey fatigue pants, trail shoes, and a deep blue, wide-sleeved, thigh-length tunic to wear over an undershirt and senbon-laden vest.

The teenager tensed as the door opened quietly and a woman dressed all in gray entered, carrying a tray full of covered dishes and a steaming teapot. The savory aromas made Haku's stomach growl instantly.

"Excuse me…," said the ninja, bowing slightly, but the woman set her tray down on the small table, turned right around, and went back the way she'd come, closing the door behind her. She hadn't even looked up.

"Hmm," Haku considered then remembered that particular class of servants they had back in Water Country, the kind that served in the great old households – manciples who were trained to perform their duties without seeing or hearing, and expected to blend into the background without being noticed.

Staring at the door, Haku walked to the table and poked through the offerings – scallion pancakes, sweet, marinated beef, white rice, a variety of spicy, pickled vegetables, and hot tea. Being ravenously hungry and intrigued by the unusual board of fare, the young fugitive sat and ate. He'd already surmised that if Juri or her masters intended to poison him or do him any harm, they'd had more than enough opportunities.

A while after the ninja had finished, while he was trimming, sanding and painting his long-neglected fingernails, another manciple in grey appeared, cleared the table and departed. Haku decided not to press him with questions – it would be a challenge to the servant's training that he'd had possibly since birth.

Footsteps approached then stopped deliberately at the door. A knock followed.

"You may enter, please," announced Haku after a time he thought seemed neither rushed nor delayed, then rose to greet his guest…or more probably he presumed, his host.

The door opened and a man entered. Though very old, he stood tall and straight-postured. His confident, steely blue-eyed face was crowned by a mane of impeccably-groomed, silver hair.

The newcomer bowed to the surprised Haku, who returned the courtesy but made sure his bow was much lower.

"Ah," the man noticed then ventured, "do you know me?"

The young ninja smiled politely. "We've never met," he stated, a little ill at ease, "but I know you by reputation, Councilor Hirai."

A smile creased the old man's wrinkled, handsome features. "I shouldn't be surprised, considering how knowledgeable and well-traveled you are throughout the Land of Water." Before Haku could say anything, his host stayed him with a gesture. "I wish to say first what a singular honor it is to have as my guest a shinobi of your caliber, Haku. Rarely have I met one who has attained such skill at such a young age – a rare combination of ancestry and dedication. You do credit to your sensei, Zabuza Momochi, who was truly one of the greatest, if indeed not _the_ greatest, ninja The Village Hidden in the Mist has ever produced."

The teenager blinked. "I…I don't know what to say. I didn't expect you of all people, one of the three members of Kirigakure's governing council, to speak so well of my late master, or of me."

"Oh?" the old statesman said with a grin, "you mean because of that unpleasant business with our Mizukage." He shrugged and gave a dismissive wave. "What's past is past. Although I confess that you two gave us fits, I must still applaud your efforts. Most people live and die as history's prisoners; few have the temerity to create history as you tried to, and in some ways, did."

The Councilor from the Land of Water sat down and Haku followed suit, hurriedly and self-consciously sweeping the nail kit, clippers, sanding board, and nail polish from the table.

Again, a quiet figure appeared, this time bearing a fresh pot of tea. He poured two cups full, set the pot on the table then made his way out – all without a word or even the slightest unnecessary motion.

Haku's benefactor took a sip of his tea, lingered contemplatively on its taste, then settled back in his chair before he spoke.

Their conversation developed then continued on for quite awhile on various interesting though mundane topics, as Haku half-suspected it would. The higher caste clans in Water Country liked a certain amount of 'getting to know you' small talk before they got to the point, or so he understood.

Already a bit off-balance at who Juri's mysterious master turned out to be, Haku found he really didn't have much to say, and floundered awkwardly. A lot of his life he found too personal to share with a relative stranger, especially one who had unknown designs on him.

This man, Lord Kissohomaru Hirai, already knew who the young ninja was, what he 'did for a living', and where he'd 'gone to school'. Really, most of the last eight years of Haku's life (those certain well-documented roaring rampages of destruction aside) had been spent training and were hardly worth talking about.

The best the teenager could come up with as far as interests and hobbies were that he'd spent his few hours of free time over those years trying to master calligraphy, reading the works of great sages (though he confessed their wisdom eluded him), and that he was fond of animals…especially bunny-rabbits.

The old luminary, though nonplussed at that last part, expressed great enthusiasm, admiration and support for those first two of his pursuits. So engaging and animated was he on the subjects that Haku soon found himself fascinated, drawn out, and fell willingly into the ebb and flow of a conversation with one of the few truly learned men he'd ever met.

Haku studied his host discreetly. There was no doubt that Lord Hirai was finding out more about him during this exchange too, but still, the young ninja noted the man's composed demeanor and gentle movements, the development of the tendons on the back of his hands, and the alert qualities of his eyes.

Until this moment, Haku was almost convinced that people like this existed only in history, in his imagination or as characters in books – a man who was royalty in the Land of Water, a ninja lord whose family had been one of its pillars since the dawn of civilization, commanded vast estates and fortunes undreamt of. For a person of such preeminence to share tea with someone like Haku, a penniless orphan, notorious criminal and fugitive from justice seemed to him truly unreal.

The old lion arrived at last at his destination. Haku marveled at how seamless his transition had been – moving effortlessly from a discussion about the past to talking about --.

"And so, young shinobi," said Lord Hirai in a casual, disarming voice, "what do you think when you think about the future?"  
Haku paused for a moment, realizing at once that this was where his host had been going all along. "I suppose," the young man ventured cautiously, "I'll do the best I can when I get there."

The ninja lord brightened the room with his delighted expression. "Ha!" he pealed, "pithy." Lord Hirai raised an eyebrow then refreshed his tea while he illustrated, "Haku, the future is like an ever-branching tree with each fork marking an event…or a decision. You've been through some trying times these last few weeks, have you not? The death of your master, forced to live as a laborer, sleeping in a squalid basement, and, of course, your recent encounter with the ANBU."

The elderly statesman leaned forward and smiled at Haku with what the young teenager took to be genuine sympathy. "Had I told you the day before your now-famous battle at the bridge, that your life would take so many twists and turns, would you have believed me?"

The young man paused to take a reflective breath. "With respect, sir," Haku replied graciously, "probably not."

"It is difficult to know what will come. Would you care for a glimpse?"

The fugitive nodded.

"By the end of this week," Lord Hirai reported, "Wave Country will be in flames. The so-called Great Naruto Bridge and all the works that compass it shall be laid waste."

Haku blinked. The fugitive shinobi was going to ask if he was serious, but decided against it. Of course he was serious. Wetting his lips, the ninja opened his mouth to speak, closed it, then tried again. "Doesn't unprovoked military action violate every standing treaty that exists between the Hidden Villages, including the Hidden Mist?" he asked instead.

The councilor nodded. "It would, but the army I have assembled for the task have no rank-and-file mist-ninja in it, but rather hired swords left over from Gato's gangs, expatriates and rogues."

The young ninja hummed thoughtfully for a moment. "Forgive me if I'm missing something basic, Lord Hirai, but why would the Mizukage wish to destroy the Land of Waves?"

"He doesn't," the old man clarified patiently. "I do. The reason why is that Wave Country is in transition. No one knows for certain what's going to happen here. All anyone can do is speculate, you see.

"Under Gato's de-facto autocracy, the country was stable. Now there's a power vacuum pulling in all sorts of people from near and far who wish to fill it," the councilor's cool eyes leveled, "or profit from it." Lord Hirai paused then, perhaps allowing Haku time to catch up. "Simply put there are some orders of governance that are acceptable and some that are not. By their example, some will reinforce stability in Kirigakure while others will challenge it."

The corner of Haku's mouth rose in thought. He was used to dealing with life in a more immediate way, with the threats he faced right there in front of him. It took a moment for him to switch gears toward his host's more abstract and philosophical track. "Yes," he offered at last in a calm voice, though inwardly he hardly knew what to think, "I think I follow."

Lord Hirai nodded with approval. "You have the advantage over our dear leader then," he remarked then went forward, steepling his fingers. "The situation has come to a head, I'm afraid. Our Mizukage is aware of developments here since Gato was killed, but is unsure what to do about it."

The old man shared a conspiratorial grin with his young guest. "He's not as decisive as he once was," he admitted somewhat regretfully. "In truth, ever since you and Zabuza came so very close to heaving the man, kicking and screaming like a frightened child, into the hereafter, he tends now to vacillate. He's lost all composure.

"On the one hand, our Mizukage has grown suspicious, fearful, and sees plots, traitors and assassins everywhere; on the other, he wishes to see to his legacy and the completion of some great work or policy that will cement his name favorably into history."

Haku took a sip of his tea, noting the passing annoyance in Lord Hirai's voice. The young ninja couldn't help but wonder at how things had changed because of Zabuza and because of him, even though they had failed.

"I have recommended to our Mizukage the immediate annexation of the Land of Waves, on the pretext of security – that the instability left here after Gato's departure could spread," the councilor went on to inform him. "Unfortunately, my counterpart in the Council of Elders, Lady Chinami Inoue, has become enthralled with the principle actors of the new order taking shape, Yoichiro Sato and Keiya Okore, and has invested heavily in their works, though in secret. She wishes to dispatch a contingent of ninja here but, as you may gather, for peacekeeping operations only.

"Can you imagine?!" the ninja lord creaked, his voice sharp with indignation, "Kirigakure sending troops to Wave Country just to protect her private interests; the gall of that woman!"

The old man frowned deeply and shook his head. "Lady Chinami is too young and naïve to appreciate the dangers. I fear she sees Mr. Sato and Miss Okore as paragons of individual initiative. They may be, but that does nothing to change the fact which, with my advanced years, stands out quite clearly to me – that only chaos will follow in their path."

Haku nodded obligingly, a bit surprised that the man would reveal so much to him. He'd always heard that the Mizukage, his Council of Elders, and the bureaucracy that funneled down from them were always deeply involved in intrigues. That was one of the many things Zabuza hated about them. Even understanding that, all this was almost too much.

The young ninja suppressed a thoughtful sigh, but couldn't help but smile at Lord Hirai's reference to Lady Inoue, a stern kunoichi in her late fifties, as 'young and naïve'.

_Everything's relative, I guess, _Haku thought.

The silver-haired patriarch seemed to realize he was testing his young audience's interest, and moved on. "You served your late master well, Haku, in flashes of brilliance no one in the Land of Water could ignore. My wish now is that you serve me. I won't presume that I could replace Zabuza in your heart or that I could fire in you the kind of passion he inspired. But when I look toward the future, I see in you limitless possibilities.

"In the new order I intend to establish, Wave Country will need daimyo to rule it, and I can think of few who could serve better in that capacity than you."

"And Juri?" Haku inquired.  
"Of course!" the old man crowed magnanimously. "There are more than enough rewards to share. Lest you think me overly Machiavellian, be assured that I would never abandon her, or anyone who devotes a portion of their lives to my service."

Haku's mind swam as he tried to absorb all the ninja lord had related. The rewards this man offered him were almost more than he could conceive of – for him, him of all people, to be a lord.

"You wanted a glimpse of the future," Lord Hirai continued heartily, "I offer you the chance to live as your own man; in whatever style you wish. As a daimyo, you may rule your lands and conduct your affairs in whatever manner you see fit. Never again shall you want for money or a home."

Haku nodded that he understood, but then something occurred to him. "What about the ANBU?"

The councilor gave him an incredulous look. "What about them?" he said with a chuckle. "To edit your name from their lists, for me, would be simplicity itself. You needn't feel anxious about them ever again." Lord Hirai cast his gaze out the window and he canted his head, then threw out for consideration: "I might even arrange to have you pardoned."

Haku choked on his tea but managed to set the cup down before he burst out laughing.

"You find my idea amusing?"

The teen shook his head and tried to suppress his disbelief. "I think you could easily help me hide from the ANBU as you say, but a…a pardon?" he gasped. "You can't mean it. It would have to come from the Mizukage himself, and I hardly think he'll grant a pardon to a ninja who came close to killing him."

"It would be a test of my abilities, to be sure," the old man admitted coyly. "But if you are patient and allow me the time to wait for the right moment, I assure you that a full pardon is not beyond my reach."

Haku gulped. All those years as Zabuza's disciple, he'd never once thought about the ramifications of being a fugitive. At the time, it hadn't mattered so long as he was helping his master achieve his dream. Now this strange, old man was offering to use his influence to restore him, erase his crimes in the eyes of the Land of Water, and bring him back into the fold of society's good graces.

Lord Hirai fixed him with a calm look. "Assuming if I may, that possessions and titles are insufficient to sway you, I shall ask now for your indulgence," the councilor said in a grand voice at which Haku nodded, spellbound. "Imagine that it is twenty years in the future. The current Mizukage is dead and me too, more than likely, but having enjoyed my support, you are now entering middle-age at the height of your powers. No one in the Land of Water even approaches your knowledge of jutsu or experience in battle. You are well-acquainted with the heads of all the influential clans, financiers and power-brokers. Well," he broke off, having already painted the picture, "I hardly need explain the rest.

"Right now, you are a fugitive, and your departed master, Zabuza Momochi, The Demon of the Hidden Mist, one of the Seven Legendary Swordsmen, is considered nothing more than some sort of extraordinary criminal. He died as a fugitive, Haku, at the hands of a worthless mob and some," he waved his hand vaguely and made a face, "second-tier jonin from the Hidden Leaf Village."

The young ninja's brow knitted. "There's nothing I…nothing anyone can do about that."

"Isn't there?" said Hirai insistently. "If you were to become Mizukage, then you could amend the story of Zabuza however you pleased. You could teach Kirigakure about the Zabuza you knew, about his courage, his skill, his passion. You could raise a statue a hundred feet tall of your late master right in the middle of the Piazza del Sangre, and people would cheer!" The old master's fiery speech yielded to a softer tone. "In a way, Haku, you might ultimately fulfill his dream – and hold the Land of Water in your hands."

The two men, old and young, sat for a while in silence. Haku's mouth hung open, stunned, his mind reeling before the world his host had described.

"I am not Zabuza," said Lord Hirai after a time in a heartfelt voice. "I don't expect to replace him in your heart. But if you serve me, I promise that you will be well-served."

The young ninja closed his eyes and let his face fall towards his lap. "You've told me so much today, Lord Hirai. I have to say I'm a little overwhelmed," said Haku in a voice that sounded calm only by an effort of will. "Although I risk giving offence, may I take some time to consider?"

The ninja lord nodded obligingly. "Of course."

* * *

**Toru**

The armed mob there assembled around The Junk's shabby precincts stirred at the sight of the returning, bloodied and battle-wearied ANBU and rose to face them.

Toru sniffed coolly, went into one of his pockets then tapped a dose of anise seeds into this mouth. "Team," he said as he began to chew, "get Eiji back to the room and see to his care. Don't come out for awhile."

"Yes, Pack-Leader," Orimi answered automatically from long-held habit, but a worried look crossed her round face. "How are you going to handle this?"

"Violently," Toru specified as he started to walk toward the crowd, pushing his glasses up as he went. Behind him, the veteran kunoichi's face went blank with shock but she then set aside her unease and wove her fingers together to form a series of seals. All four mist-ninja, Aya, Yukimasa, the wounded Eiji, and herself, vanished into a whirling mist.

As the big Pack-Leader approached the mob's front lines, wringing his fingers in anticipation of the brief battle to come, he weighed what it was he felt like doing. _There're so many jutsu,_ he thought coolly, it's hard to pick just one. _Something direct and to the point, or…maybe something messy but dramatic. Maybe I'll kill 'em all by hand, that'd be a nice physical release, although it's a little more effort than I really want to get into right now._

"So," Toru said in a bland voice to the riled citizens of Wave Country, ready to unleash devastating force and indeed looking forward to it, "how's it goin'?"

Some of the men looked at him, then at each other uncertainly. A ripple passed through the assembly and a man the big mist-ninja knew emerged from their ranks.

"Tazuna?" voiced Toru in surprise.

The grey-haired engineer brushed himself off and gave his companions an angry look for not granting him easier passage, then turned toward the Pack-Leader.

"Yeah, it's me, Yamashite," the old bridge-builder grumbled.

Toru gave him a puzzled look and gestured vaguely. "What is all this?"

Tazuna's grey eyes flickered up. His voice was deadly serious. "They took my grandson."

The Pack-Leader thought for a moment then nodded slowly as he remembered the feisty, black-haired boy. "What," he offered, "you mean the little firecracker, Inari? Who? Who took him?"

Tazuna turned and gestured, at which his cadre brought forth two men. One was tall, dark skinned and tattooed, while the other was pale and blue haired. Both looked as if they'd seen better days.

The tall one was dazed almost to the point of unconsciousness, bandaged around the midsection, and walked with a terrible, lurching limp. His shorter companion grimaced from constant pain and wore a matched pair of boxy clavicle splints.

"Yeesh," hissed Toru who winced with reflexive sympathy.

"'Big one's Waraji; 'little one's Zori," explained the engineer. "They were Gato's goons from way back…cold-blooded killers. 'Started out no good, and they've been losing ground ever since. They're with a new crew now; 'told us the whole story. They kidnapped my boy and got a whole lot worse planned for the rest of us!"

The mist-ninja blinked. "Ok, so what's that got to do with me?"

Tazuna scowled at the ANBU's thick-headedness. "We need your help," he explained as if to a child.

The ANBU's face rose into a broad, comical grin. "I think you've got me wrong," Toru informed him and held up a beefy palm. "I'm not a cop, you know. I'm an ANBU Captain from Kirigakure sent here to hunt down a couple of dangerous rogue ninja -- Zabuza Momochi and his disciple Haku. Outside of that, I have no jurisdiction here."  
The engineer frowned and blew out a breath. "Sounds like a pretty crappy excuse to me."

"I don't make the rules, Tazuna. I just play by them."

Tazuna raised a critical eyebrow at him, then grinned smartly. "You might just want to have a little talk with these two scumbags," he suggested. "Maybe they'll tell you something that'll change your mind."

Toru sighed and hung his head. Dealing with this crap was not at all what he was in the mood for. Nevertheless, Tazuna was something of a local bigwig and Toru was fairly certain that there'd be some kind of price to pay for not at least pretending to hear him out.

The big man scratched his ear then looked off toward where the early evening sun drew closer to the horizon, far out at the ocean's edge. Along the docks, the moored boats rocked gently in their berths.

Motioning for the two bandits to follow him, Toru plodded up the steps into The Junk's crowded patio. Tazuna's mob shoved Zori and Waraji after him.

The ANBU looked around at all the men gathered around rough wooden tables, and all the emptied bottles, pitchers and cups, then turned toward the proprietor, a lanky, light-haired man wearing an open shirt, who was busy helping his small wait-staff clean up.

"I don't ever want to hear you say how having us stay in your boarding rooms is bad for business," the ninja directed curtly, at which the man shrugged an apology.

"Sit," Toru commanded the captives in a tone that could not be refused as he pulled up a couple of chairs. "Everyone else…get out." Before the proprietor could complain, the ninja cut him off, "Not…one…word!"

When the bridge-builder's posse had gone, and Toru was alone amidst the paint peeling, concrete-columned patio, he approached the seated Zori and Waraji from behind and stood between them. Fidgeting slightly, he reached out and put his massive right palm against the right side of Zori's head, then placed his left along side Waraji's left.

"W-wait," muttered Zori worriedly, his eyes darting. "What are you doing? What is this, some kind of jutsu?"

"It's not a jutsu," Toru explained.

"What are you gonna do?" groaned Waraji.

The ANBU considered for a moment then replied, "Are you sure you want to know? 'Cause it won't make you feel any better."

Both bandits fell silent but exchanged alarmed looks. "Um, well," Zori began again. "Aren't you gonna ask us some questions or something?"

"Nah," said Toru in a listless voice. "I'm kinda tired. This has really been a bitch of a day. Besides, like I told Tazuna, I'm not a cop."

"Hold on, hold on! What are you gonna do then?" wailed Zori, as beads of perspiration started to form along his hairline.  
"Well, first I'm going to finish up this little explanation," Toru enlightened them, "then I'm going to take a nice, deep breath. And then, I'm going to smash your heads together until my hands look like they're covered in bloody apple-sauce." The ninja noted the pair's reaction. "Now, you see that?" he whined knowingly. "I told you it wouldn't make you feel any better."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" shrieked Zori. "Hold on! We'll…we'll tell you everything! Anything you want to know!"

Toru shook his head. "You're not getting where I'm coming from," he complained. "I don't care. I'm not interested in serving or protecting…I'm here to kill Haku and put his remains in a bag, that's it, that's all --."

"Haku!?" the taller bandit gasped, then looked at Zori whose head bobbed up and down. "We've seen him, a couple of weeks ago!"

"Yeah!" Zori hurriedly reinforced. "He's the one who beat us up like this!"

"Hmm," Toru mused before concluding: "That's almost interesting."

A ripple of preparatory tension sprang down the dense fibers of the Pack-Leader's muscles, proceeding from his broad chest down through his thick shoulders, arms, forearms and fingers.

"Wait!" the two criminals screeched as one.

"Now what?" bellowed the ANBU, who rolled his eyes.  
"Our new boss, Juri," Zori informed him, "she…she's after Haku too!"

Toru's heavy palms dropped slightly from the sides of their faces. "What's she look like," he inquired doubtfully, but they quickly described in detail the same mean-looking girl with the black hat who'd come to Haku's rescue.  
The mist-ninja stepped away, brought up another chair then sat in front of them. "Do go on," he droned.

* * *

After Toru had heard everything the two hapless swords-for-hire had to say, he put his hands in his pockets and strolled out to the front steps of The Junk's patio, took a sniff of the cool, evening air, and sat down beside Tazuna who waited for him. 

"And?" the engineer asked.

The Pack-Leader nodded. "It would seem that our paths intersect," he began. "Given the situation, I am willing to include rescuing Inari among our mission objectives. Understand though, that takes second place to two things: taking down Haku, and taking down that girl who attacked us."

Tazuna canted his head and grinned. "'Mighty _big_ of you," he quipped slyly.

The ANBU gave him a sidelong glance and smirked begrudgingly at the veiled insult.

"When do we move?"

"We?" asked Toru who quickly clarified, "nuh-uh. This isn't amateur hour. We'll be fighting a full company of renegade ninja, a battalion of mercenaries, plus that girl, Juri, plus Haku. I don't know if you're up on current events, but we've all seen what those two alone are capable of. You and your crew would just be a body count waiting to happen."

"We're so lucky to have you looking out for us," offered Tazuna in a tone laced with sarcasm, then gave the Pack-Leader a hard look. "Listen, for my part, if anything happens to Inari then I'd rather die then go on living. So don't waste any of your concern on me. As for the rest, they know the score – there's an army sitting in the hills waiting to burn this place to the ground, and that's exactly what'll happen if we don't stop them."

Toru met the engineer's gaze, just to see for himself if the man really understood what he was saying. Once satisfied, he gave a reaffirming nod. "That is about the size of it."

"You understand then, how none of us are willing to sit back and let our future be decided by a fight we're not in?"

"I understand perfectly," the ANBU clarified, "but that doesn't turn a bad idea into a good one. If these guys fight, each and every one of them will most likely get killed."

The old man glanced away, kneading his fingers tensely. "We can't keep depending on others to fight for us – leaf ninja last time, mist ninja this time," said Tazuna when he turned back. "In a weird kind of way we've been lucky, but you know as well do that the only ones we can really depend on to look after us…is us! If we really want to have any kind of future, then we need to act like it." The grandfather paused meaningfully and leaned closer into the ninja's scruffy face. "We need to fight for it."

Toru, already worn out, conceded, "ok, ok. Enough, I get it." He gave Wave Country's vigilantes a critical glance and shook his head direly. "Maybe I can use your mob of untrained, well-meaning idiots as a diversion or something; I don't know."

"That's the spirit!" the bridge-builder crowed and slapped Toru repeatedly across his broad back. "So…when do WE move?"

"One of my guys is down," the big man reported. "The rest, me included, needs at least a day to heal up and recover; even then it's pushing it."

Tazuna recoiled. "A day!?"

"Attacking now would be useless," Toru insisted. "I know that must seem like a long time, but if Juri was going to kill Inari outright she's had more than enough time already. And as you pointed out, there's more at stake. We'll need at least a day to rest and develop some kind of strategy."

"And if their plan is to attack before then?"  
"Then we're all screwed and everybody dies."

Tazuna gave the ninja a grim smile. "No need to sugarcoat."

Toru pushed his glasses up and rubbed his bleary eyes. "We have an understanding then?" he asked.

"Yup," Tazuna agreed then slapped his knees as he rose to his feet. "See ya tomorrow. I'll leave it to you to come up with a plan of attack, big fella. I'll tell you what – it better be good."

Toru watched the engineer pace away to give his ersatz army the news. Never in his life had he felt so worn out. He drew a deep breath, rose, then walked back into The Junk. The barkeep had a beer waiting for him before he even reached the bar.

The ANBU captain looked down at the tall, condensation-coated glass, the bubbling amber color with just a bit of foaming head on top. His eyes drifted back up toward the proprietor – his thin beard, sea-foam eyes and his ridiculous open shirt that revealed a bony chest. "What," Toru asked him, "you psychic?"

The man shook his head. "Just know that look…really, really well."

"I suppose we're not the best boarders you've ever had. Sorry for all the bullshit."

The barkeep shrugged. "No big deal. If it wasn't for crazy customers, what would I have to talk about?"

Toru laughed weakly then turned as Orimi joined him at the bar and ordered a drink herself.

"I didn't hear any screaming or big explosions, so I figured it was ok to come out. So, what happened, chief?

Her leader let his head fall toward her. "I'll tell you later."

Aya appeared after a few moments to inform the two in her quiet, understated way, that Eiji was resting in guarded condition and that she'd tended to Yukimasa's jaw which had to be wired shut in order to heal.

"Well, at least we'll finally get some peace and quiet around here," joked Toru. Orimi snickered, while Aya just gave them a puzzled look.

The three then looked at each other as the staccato sound of slapping footfalls approached from the road outside. Turning toward the steps, they watched a young boy stagger in. The ragged figure panted for breath, doubled over and rested his forearms on his knees. His black hair was plastered against a round-shaped head, but what drew the attention of all three ninja was his right hand which was crabbed, horribly discolored and swollen.

In painful stages, the newcomer slouched forward, drawing gradually closer to the ANBU Pack-Leader. When he looked up, his face was a sodden mask of dripping tears and sweat, the locus of emotions so profound and intense that they filled the room.

Toru leaned back on his barstool as he looked the strange, young apparition up and down. "What's your f-cking problem?" he asked bluntly, not really wanting to know the answer.

Orimi and Aya glanced at their chief then looked back at the boy.

"P…please," the boy rasped almost incoherently between sobs. His limbs trembled as if in the grip of a seizure. "Don't hurt him."

Toru looked to his two kunoichi for guidance, but only got a shrug and blank expression back. "Ok," he allowed, "what are you talking about?"

"H…Haku," the child blurted then fell to his knees before them. "Please don't hurt him. Please!"

"Oh!" Aya gasped with recognition. "I know who this is – his name is Chuuya, Chuuya Tezuka. He lives in the house where Haku was staying."

The big ANBU tilted his head back then threw up his hands in exasperation. "That's it!" he declared suddenly. "I've had it. I'm taking my beer and going back to my room."

Aya and Orimi watched as Toru slid off his seat, grabbed his glass and stalked off. On his way up to the boarding rooms, he jacked his thumb toward Chuuya and to his ninja commanded, "Y'all handle this."

* * *

_Hmmm, kind of a long chapter and not much action compared to the last two. But I hope you liked it._

_--J_


	12. Chapter 12

**Chuuya**

Chuuya Tezuka's dark, wide-set eyes glowered hatefully. His slightly pudgy face congealed into an expression of intense loathing as he sat at one of The Junk's rustic, wooden tables with his shattered hand being tended to by one of the ANBU ninja, who'd said her name was Aya, while her senior, Orimi, looked on without interest.

Night had fallen, cooling the air. Flickering lamplight lent a touch of friendly ambiance to the bar's open-air patio as the working-class regulars, porters, construction workers, and fishermen all started to arrive, keeping clear of the slightly banged-up little boy in the evergreen-colored t-shirt and baggy, black shorts, and his two attendants from Kirigakure.

Despite the presence of the outsiders, mugs and bottles clinked, and relaxed laughter mixed with the drone of conversations that often rose loud enough to let the three know that they were the subjects of more than a few of them.

Aya's sure, slender-fingered hands cradled the child's arm as she wrapped his hand, wrist and the upper part of his forearm with white, plaster-saturated bandages over a padded base. The young kunoichi had already given him three pills, each a different color, and rubbed a strong-smelling liniment briskly into his skin to relieve the pain and swelling.

"My," Aya offered tentatively in her soft, bird-song voice as she again tried to engage her young patient in conversation, "I can't remember the last time I saw such a badly-broken hand."

"Yeah, kid," added Orimi, smiling sadly and staring dull-eyed into her almost-empty glass, "what'd you do, punch a brick wall? 'Cause you got to work your way up to that."

The detainee scowled, his young lips curling. Though Chuuya felt tired almost to the point of being sick, hatred buoyed him and he was not about to let these two see him falter.

Aya's pale, pretty, young face rose slightly as her eyes retreated from the child's venomous expression, while Orimi merely laughed.

"Huh-ha!" the woman chuckled to her ninja sister and leaned over on her elbow, remarking: "Wow, if looks could kill there wouldn't be enough left of us to fill a shot-glass."

Chuuya, thus mocked, returned to his dark silence. He didn't feel much like talking anyway.

_Why am I so tired?_ the boy bemoaned to himself.

His body felt leaden and his mouth hung open. Even though it was only the early part of the evening of what had been an eventful day, it took an effort of will for him force his bleary eyes open again every time he blinked.

There never had been much of a plan really, the boy remembered, just – go down to where the ANBU hung out and tell them not to hurt Haku. It had seemed so reasonable at the time.

As passionate and sincere as his entreaty had been, the ninjas' leader had not been impressed and stormed away, leaving him in the hands of his underlings. Chuuya, having then realized his mistake, had tried unsuccessfully to flee but had not been able to elude these two mist-kunoichi who were now intent on humiliating him even further.

In the end though, golden victory had been his because he'd learned from the way they were acting and overheard bits and pieces of what people were saying to each other around him, that Haku had gotten away.

_Not only that,_ Chuuya concluded, giving Haku an unvoiced, gleeful cheer, _but it sounds like sensei gave 'em an epic ass-whupping to remember him by!_ He could picture the battle in his head and had no doubt how it had ended.

_Yeah, _Chuuya thought, _I'll bet he used his Ten-thousand Needles of Death jutsu, and then his Demonic Crystal Ice Mirrors! Oh, man!_ he lamented, almost unable to contain himself, _I wish, I wish, I wish I could have been there to see that!_

Imagining Haku's triumph over the forces of evil brought a grim, satisfied smile to his face and he was not at all shy about letting it show.

Aya's eyes drifted again towards the boy's and seemed to understand what his expression meant. "I suppose over these last few weeks, that you must have become quite attached to Haku," she ventured in tentative earnest and brushed a strand of straight, black hair off her ear, careful not to smear any plaster on herself, "but you must realize that he is a renegade ninja who has done terrible things."

The boy snorted imperiously, refusing to dignify her paltry, defamatory explanation with a reply.

_Just who the hell does she think she is?!_ Chuuya fumed, though it was getting harder and harder for him to stay conscious,_ trash-mouthing my sensei like that!_

"You're wasting your breath," Orimi advised flatly. "Obviously he's been taken in by Haku's 'damsel in distress' act. Still," she appraised in a tone of approval and raised her glass to the child, "it took some guts to come down here and get in our faces like that."

The lady ANBU took a handful of pretzels, tossed one into her mouth, then said to Aya, "Did you see the look on Chief's face?" she snickered. "He's so funny when he's annoyed."

Aya smiled reservedly then turned serious as Chuuya suddenly went pale; his eyes drifted and his round head swayed. With her reflexes, the ninja easily caught him before he fell out of his chair.

Murmurs went up from the startled patrons around them as the boy came to then tried weakly to push away Aya's attentions.

Orimi gave the troublesome child a glance then turned to Aya. "What's wrong with him?"

The younger ANBU didn't answer at first, being engrossed with checking Chuuya's pulse and examining his eyes, then felt along the top of his breastbone. "He's very chakra depleted," she answered worriedly at last then went into her copious pockets to produce another pill – this one small and glossy black.

"Chakra depleted? That doesn't make any sense." The older kunoichi's face widened as Aya put the medicine in the child's slack mouth, poured water in, and encouraged him to swallow. "Are you really giving him a hei-lung?" Orimi queried in disbelief. "What are you trying to do, light him up? That is an adult dosage, you know?"

Aya fixed her at once with an 'I'm the medical-nin here, unless you want to take over' look, at which Orimi raised her hands, shook her head, then drank down the last of her beer.

The recovering boy sat and stared into space. Within moments, The Junk's patio became something of a surreal playground where unintelligible sounds mingled with vivid flashes of color not found in nature. Strange sensations assailed him, his breath quickened and his limbs started to vibrate tensely. By the time he could set aside the novelty of these experiences and focus his thoughts again, awhile had passed and his cast was finished.

Chuuya raised his right arm up slightly and regarded his new, alien attachment in bewilderment, tilting it left and right. The appendage felt weird and heavy, and was so clean and white that it seemed almost luminous – a glowing disembodied arm, rising before him in the dim light, leaving ghosts of itself behind it in its passage.

"Come," beckoned Aya gently as she finished wiping her hands clean then patted the child's shoulder. "I'd better take you home."

Chuuya shrugged off his disorientation and bridled. "I don't need your help!" he barked sharply, drawing muffled laughter from the patrons around him.

"Yah!" someone called out from a nearby table, obviously joking. "You tell 'em, little man! Don't take no sh-t!"

"I'll take it if you don't," offered another merrily amidst the scattered laughter, "she's cute!"

"Once you go ninja, you never go back!"

Against torrents of laughter, Orimi shook her head with a look of strained patience. "Just humor us, ok, kiddo?"

The boy's angry, accusingly-feral look swept the crowd. He grunted at the kunoichi then stalked away, hopped down the patio's steps and went out into the night. Aya had to rush to catch up to him.

His energy now returned, amplified and un-channeled, Chuuya set a brisk pace as he marched down Wave Country's dark precincts. The way was lit by glowing lanterns but they were intermittent, and created round pools of light strung out against the black.

"Please, Chuuya," Aya begged as she looked around alertly, "the streets are really dangerous at night. You shouldn't go by yourself." Though she was in full, mist-ninja battledress, with boots, high-collared cuirass-jacket and fatigue pants, and was obviously armed, her dainty stature and shy, school-girl looks counterbalanced the otherwise militant effect.

"Get away from me!" Chuuya shouted, sped up, then rounded on his escort. "You're here to kill Haku, ya witch! I don't know why you're trying to be so nice to me, but you're NOT my friend and never will be!"

The young kunoichi winced reflexively at the boy's piercing voice and tried to calm him. "Please Chuuya," she began in a plaintive tone. "I suppose you don't have any reason to believe me, but Haku is a ruthless killer, an assassin. Why do you think they call him The Demon's Apprentice?"

The round-headed boy marched on, immune from her testimony.

"Listen to me, please," Aya tried again. "Haku is incredibly dangerous. He almost killed my friend and teammate Eiji today in the street. Ask your sister if you don't believe me. He's…he's--."

"Just stop it," the boy cried, his face growing red. "You don't know him; you don't know anything! He's my friend. He's --." The youngest Tezuka brother cut himself short. There was no reason _she_ needed to know anything more than she already did.

Giving his unwanted bodyguard a mean, clever grin, Chuuya turned away and resumed his course for home. The boy's breath quickened as he sped up his pace, with his racing footsteps slapping in light, fast rhythm over the paving stones.

Even though his hand was broken and he had a few raw scrapes from the tumble he'd taken over the pavement during his altercation with the three men who'd kidnapped Inari, Chuuya was starting to feel better. In fact, for some reason, he felt truly magnificent…like his body was a gushing fountain of limitless energy. The boy could sense it now, his chakra, flowing with the power of the crashing surf.

_This…this is it!_ Chuuya marveled to himself in quiet intensity, as if someone might overhear. _This is what sensei was talking about!_ The black-haired child exulted. _He's going to freak-out when I tell him!_

Absorbed in his own world now, he gradually decelerated. In his mind he had become a fully-fledged ninja, complete with the outfit, headband and panoply of arms. With the power of his jutsu he could stand tall among the best of them. He was done listening to tales of ninja adventure; he was ready to be in one.

A few people passed by, all headed the opposite way -- to The Junk or some similar place, or else home after a long day. No one paid the lone, emotionally-hyperactive boy much attention.

Chuuya's thoughts turned toward Haku, and his lips twitched then pulled back into the widest grin as he imagined his sensei throwing around the ANBU who'd tried to kill him like so many brightly-colored inflatable toys, snapping limbs like pretzels, while dancing around their feeble blows like a hummingbird dodging hay bales. The boy's face blazed then with an expression of sublime awe as he pictured himself fighting at Haku's side; the disciple's terrifying powers rivaling his master's.

A delicious giggle trickled from him and soon developed into a fit of hooting, unrestrained laughter. His shrill voice echoed out into the night, then slowly faded as Chuuya considered what had happened and what it really meant for the future.

_Haku's gone, isn't he?_ the realization fell over him like a pall, sucking out every last drop of joy. _I mean, how can he stay if the ANBU know where he is?_

Feeling very much alone, the child's footsteps slowed until he drew gradually to a stop.

_What am I supposed to do?_ the thought froze him for what seemed like a long time until a gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder.

Chuuya startled and looked up excitedly, fully expecting it to be Haku himself. But a grimace transformed the hope in the child's young, eager face as he pulled away from the offending touch as if it was slimy.

"Is something wrong?" asked Aya with a touch of aggravating, genuine concern. The young woman stood over him, her shadowed countenance lit only by distant lamplight.

"Nah, nuthin'," Chuuya spat as he started off again then turned back long enough to give the ninja a nasty look, "'thought I'd lost you."

Aya followed behind him in silence for awhile then tried to give her unhappy patient some basic advice about his cast: don't scratch under it; don't get it wet; take it off in about six weeks; and that he should eat something then go right to bed so he could sleep off the powerful medications she'd given him.

She gave up when it became clear he wasn't listening.

At last they arrived at Chuuya's worn but well-kept house and the boy charged up to the door. He didn't bother to ask the ANBU how she knew which one was his; by now that was obvious.

"Chuuya," gasped Aya behind him in futility. "What do you see in him? Would you please tell me that?"

The boy froze on the spot with his back to the ninja. There wasn't a reason in this world that he should tell her any damn thing, Chuuya thought, but the question took root in his mind. The question itself was worthy of an answer.

"He…he's a good person, and kind," Chuuya's voice sounded. "He's really strong too, but he never, like, rubs your face in it like my dumb brothers do…and he's stronger than all of _them_ put together. He's kinda weird, he but actually listens to me; he doesn't mind hanging out with me and he doesn't laugh at my dreams."

The child turned slowly and glared at her with eyes that burned like black fire as he pointed his finger at her and declared: "Haku's my friend! And if you hurt him," Chuuya vowed with the severity of a samurai lord, "you'll be sorry!"

Aya stared blankly at the boy, not quite knowing how to reply. After a moment, she sighed, opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it.

As the boy turned back to the door, the ninja frowned, formed her fingers together in a series of patterns and vanished into a whirling mist.

Chuuya, alone now with his hand on the knob, paused at the threshold but did not enter. Instead he turned back and cast his purposeful gaze up into the starlit sky. Inwardly he was calm even though his heart beat loud, his breath gushed rapidly, and his surplus strength made his muscles quiver and his teeth rattle.

_One person's responsible for all this,_ he summarized to himself, vowing cold vengeance, _the one who gave my friend, my sensei, over to_ _those ANBU rats._ Chuuya's eyes narrowed with a fierce, irrational determination and his jaw tightened as he clenched his good hand into a fist.

_And that worthless, evil little son-of-a-bitch's gonna pay...big time!_

* * *

**Juri**

Out on the wide, flat fields that surrounded the old factory, scores of troops practiced maneuvers. One group hacked apart rolled tatami mats and scarecrow facsimiles of the people they'd be massacring in a few days with curved broadswords. Another rehearsed setting buildings a-fire, while others shot at targets with powerful, windless crossbows.

From the sidelines, Juri Chono watched through a pair of round sunglasses so dark they seemed opaque – black circles against the rough, mahogany-brown features of her face. The young woman's martial posture was straight and rigid as she stood in her typical raiment – boots, camouflage-pattered, knee-length shorts, commando-black t-shirt and a black, kufi-style cap.

As she folded her tautly-muscled arms, Juri's hidden eyes swiveled discreetly toward the countenance of her new 'partner' Haku who stood beside her in a dark blue tunic and baggy, grey fatigue pants, with his hands crossed at his waist.

Juri couldn't help but notice, with some disapprobation, that the ninja had painted his fingernails dark green.

"Well, Iceman," the girl probed casually in an imitation of civility and nodded in the direction of her mercenaries, "what do you think?"  
The strange young man inhaled deeply then blew out a breath. "I guess you get what you pay for," he answered obliquely.

Juri grimaced at first at his critical tone. Even though she was looking for another reason to hate him, she could hardly fault Zabuza's disciple for stating the obvious.

"There's some truth," Juri admitted then grinned harshly. "But they ought to get the job done, don't you think? We've got forty rogue ninja to handle the really tough stuff…well, make that thirty-nine and a quarter." The young woman turned her head toward Haku who stared straight forward as though he hadn't heard. It didn't take long for the short fuse of Juri's patience to burn down. "Hey!" she barked.

"Hmm?" the fugitive answered distantly in his lilting, feminine but sure voice. "Sorry…I'm a little preoccupied."

Juri stiffened, scowled, but accepted his explanation. _Yeah, conversations with the old man can do that to you,_ she had to acknowledge; her own personal experiences left her no choice. A spike of jealousy rose. _I wonder what he offered Haku…a lot more than me, I'll bet._

She looked again at The Demon's Apprentice's inscrutable, girlish face, his long, straight, silky black hair, youthful, warm-looking cheeks and eyes of lustrous grey, then rolled her eyes. _I don't get it. What does Shr Fu see in this guy – he's got some skills, sure, but he's a punk!_

Again, for the umpteenth time, Juri vowed to set aside her animosity for the sake of her mission…and the sake of her future.

_Yeah, but there's just something about this guy,_ came the thought unbidden as she licked at the corner of her mouth, _something that's telling me to…stomp his face in. 'Don't know what it is._

_Careful,_ Juri reminded herself begrudgingly. _He really does know how to fight; 'took down three ANBU ninja-hunters by himself, unarmed and unprepared._

_Yeah, so what?_ she disputed herself._ I took on their boss, what's his name, Toru, yeah, Toru Yamashite, aka, Akita – an experienced jonin!_

Though the thought was intended to encourage her, it had the opposite effect. She knew even without thinking about it explicitly that the only way she'd been able to do that is with her master's aid – the power of his scrolls.

_Whatever,_ Juri reconciled. _If he makes his power mine, then what difference does it make?_

She glanced again at Haku.

_Shr Fu's calling the shots,_ Juri remembered and groaned to herself._ I guess he knows what he'd doing. And hell, maybe this whole Haku thing will work out after all, who knows._

Right on schedule, a signalman sent up a loud, whistling skyrocket. It arced high into the air then burst overhead with a sharp, percussive 'pop'.

The bandit army ceased their activities, assembled themselves into company formations then marched double-time to their next exercise stations. As one of the trotting ranks passed close to where their two leaders stood, they bent their paths to veer wide around them.

"Word's gotten out about you, Iceman," said Juri, with an informative yet sardonic tone. "Yup, we got The Demon's Apprentice himself on the team…soooo exciting."

The young woman turned, clasped her hands behind her, and started to lead the way to the next stop on this sightseeing tour. "Some of 'em say you died back on that bridge, killed by this big-deal leaf-ninja; and that maybe you're a ghost who's come back." Juri tossed out a caustic laugh. "It's bullsh-t, I know, but it only goes to show you can't believe everything you hear."

Haku followed her. The fugitive ninja's oddly brooding reticence was really starting to get on the bleached-blonde's nerves.

"Tell me, big-shot," asked Juri sharply to draw him out, "how'd you do it…how'd you live through all that?"

A few moments passed and the girl again wondered if Haku was lost in thought or just blowing her off.

"Really, I didn't have anything to do with it," answered Haku slowly. "I would have died, but this…this nice girl happened to come along and pick me out of the garbage." Haku looked at Juri as if to gage her reaction. "Kind of an undignified turn for someone with a nickname like 'The Demon's Apprentice', don't you think?" The teenager looked back to the path ahead with a carefree almost whimsical smile, though it seemed forced. "Maybe my reputation is undeserved."

Juri said nothing for awhile, then stopped dead in her tracks and gave her partner a sour look. "There's no getting a _simple_ answer out of you, is there?" she observed grimly.

The young woman shook her head then led her new teammate off into the forest, irked, but not surprised that Haku didn't even ask her where they were going. As they walked, a thought lit her mind and she grinned, brushing her thumb against her chin.

"Y'know," Juri began coyly as she looked up into the thick tree canopies, her booted feet crunching carelessly through the forest's carpet of dead leaves, fallen branches and pine straw, "I was a little surprised when I found out you were into girl's clothes."

"Is that so?" replied Haku in a nonchalant voice, but Juri wasn't ready to give up just yet.

"'Seems a little bit weird to me, that's all. But, hey, to each his own."

"I'm glad you see it that way."

A wide grin spread over Juri's face as she was rewarded by the faintest trace of discomfiture in his voice. "Don't get mad now, Iceman. I just think it's funny – a boy who likes to dress up like a girl."

She turned to Haku to survey what, if any, damage she'd done, but the fugitive ninja only blinked then looked pointedly at her own ensemble.

Juri's face screwed blankly. "What?" she sneered.

"Nothing," said Haku at last and moved past her. "It's not important."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," she said after him.

As they continued a ways through the forest that had appeared, at first glance, to be uninhabited, signs began to emerge of the company of ninja mercenaries encamped nearby. Here and there, the trees were scarred and pocked. Up above them, the bark on the top sides of some of the branches was worn off and the foliage had thinned from the passage of so many shinobi.

_I'm sorry, Shr Fu, really,_ Juri rehearsed to herself as she walked, _I tried to make it work out, I really did, but it was just one of those things, ya know? _A frown creased her brow. _No, no, no, _she decided, _the old man's pretty smart; I'll have to come up with something a lot better-sounding than that if his wonder-boy gets dead all of a sudden._

The woman's fingers tapped a tense drum-beat against her leg. Though the old man had not warned her of any consequences for killing Haku, Juri felt certain that there would be.

Again she took a deep, calming breath as she listened to Shr Fu's wisdom. _'You are my disciple,' _he'd said to her once. _'The root of that word is 'discipline' which means self-control. If it is your wish to remain my disciple or learn anything useful, let alone the ancient and elusive secrets of the ninja arts, then you must at all times and under all conditions exercise self-control. It is what distinguishes the superior man…or woman in this case.'_

_Yes, Shr Fu,_ she replied out of habit, though this time it was hard. _Ok…I'm NOT going to kill him. He's your new partner, your teammate, a…a co-worker. You even went out and got him a gift! There,_ Juri thought, smiling tightly as she put the matter to rest. _That settles it. No killing._

_Although...it doesn't mean you have to like him. And…if it just so happens that he attacks you --._

The young woman paused as she heard Haku draw to a stop, then turned to see what the problem was. "Now what?" she grumbled.

Midway up the trunk of a tree, two birds were pinned – pierced straight through their feathered breasts, having been caught in mid-flight by expertly-thrown kunai knives.

Haku stared at the sight, looked back at Juri dispassionately then continued on. By now it was obvious what direction they were headed.

Other signs appeared – more dead birds, along with bats, squirrels, voles, lizards, and the larger insects deemed worthy of being targets, moths, butterflies, giant hornets, and dragonflies, all skewered with kunai, shuriken and senbon.

Haku's guide grunted. Even she was starting to get put-off by all the gratuitous carnage. "Our guys are gettin' a little antsy," she offered by way of explanation.

"So it seems," the ninja agreed bleakly.

A little further on, the pair steered a wide course around the rotting corpse of a wild donkey that had strayed too far into the practice area. Various missiles stuck in what was left of its fly-covered, pink and grey flesh and exposed bones. The attitude of its repose indicated that it clearly had not died a natural death.

"Juri?" Haku asked as he walked along, passing between light, shade and shadow beneath the forest's green canopy.

"Yeah?"

"What do you think of Lord Hirai?"

The young woman glanced at him quizzically, but quickly figured out who he was talking about. _So that's his real name, huh,_ she thought. _After all this time, I finally know. I guess it had to happen sooner or later._

"He's ok, a little long-winded, but ok," said Juri. "I'll tell you this much…if he said something's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. Bank on it."

Haku looked off into the forest, through the endless trees that covered the rolling landscape. "Did he tell you what all this is about?"

"What all what's about?"

"This," the ninja reiterated calmly as he waved his hand around at the decomposing donkey and the rest of the dead wildlife, "all these mercenaries and why he wants to destroy the Land of Waves."

Juri's brow knitted. "Didn't he tell you?" she answered, surveying him askance through the dark disks of her sunglasses. It felt oddly reassuring that Lord Hirai would tell her something he didn't tell Haku, something important to him, maybe something the 'great' Demon's Apprentice wouldn't understand.

Though Haku had unintentionally brightened her day, she laughed harshly. "I'm surprised. I would've thought you'd eat it up. Heh, consider yourself lucky if he didn't tell you, 'cause he could go on about it for hours." Juri grinned wryly then fixed him with a look. "Get this," she paraphrased in a sarcastic drawl, "it's all about…who gets to be the gardener."

Haku peered at her, baffled.

"Lookit," the young woman explained with an unconvincing air of erudition, "the Land of Waves is a garden, and if there's a whole bunch of gardeners then everything will be all messy and wrong, but if there's just one, then everything will be orderly and beautiful. Get it?"

Haku gazed at her for a long moment before he nodded slowly and affirmed, "Yes, I think I do."

"I figured you would. You must be smarter than you look," said Juri with a scowl. "Tell me something, Iceman, when Shr Fu told me what the plan was, he added all this…this stuff, all this poetry and prose about gardens, proportions, composition, aesthetics, order and chaos, the tyranny of the mob, and how everyone's a tool. But if you take all of that away it just sounds like a giant ego trip to me. Am I right?"

Haku stared like she'd just performed a magic trick before he reigned in his expression and nodded softly.

"Figures!" cried Juri who threw up her hands then let them fall, slapping against her thighs. "I don't see why he's got to make it sound so complicated," she complained. "If somebody's got the balls, the money and the muscle, and they want to do something then that's reason enough! Why's he got to, you know, fluff it up?"

"Maybe," her partner suggested, "he needs to tell himself it's something more."

Juri spat out a scornful breath. "Whatever," she offered dismissively as she resumed course toward the ninja encampment. "What more do you need?"

The blonde fell silent for a bit as she tried to clear the nonsensical idea from her mind.

_Lord Hirai's a powerful guy, that's plain enough,_ she thought, _but he must be one of those people who read way too many books. They always start to think that it matters a damn what's in 'em._

_I never understood that! It doesn't matter what people say, think, or write down; what matters is what they DO. There aren't any alternative worlds in books or anywhere else, there's only ONE – the one we're living in right now, the one written in flesh and f-cking blood!_

"So, about you and Zabuza," she started anew, smiling wolfishly, not content on leaving their conversation where it had ended. "Were you two getting' it on, or what?"

Haku gave out a desolate sigh. "You really expect me to answer that?"

"Hey, it doesn't matter to me. I can totally see it, that's all. It's pretty clear Momochi didn't keep you around for your _personality_. I mean, you're young, skinny and sweet, you look like a girl, and he was all rough and bulked-up. You're a lucky dog in a way, he had a killer body. I'll bet his --."

Juri startled then at a sudden motion and the forest floor erupted in a gust of wind that sent the leaves and fallen branches flying.

When the debris settled, the woman goggled past her upraised arms at the sight of Haku standing half a step from where he'd been. At the end of his outstretched right arm, a tall figure dressed in gray, mist-ninja battledress hung suspended in mid-air. Haku's fingers were locked on the ambusher's face in a splayed grip – with the fore and middle fingers clamped down on the orbital socket of the figure's right eye, the ring and pinkie fingers locked on the left, and the thumb hooked deeply under the chin.

Haku's left hand had deflected and seized the attacker's right, which held a kunai.

Juri stared for a moment and watched Haku's would-be killer's long legs sway back and forth from residual momentum while his face remained imprisoned in the fugitive's iron grip.

_My God, he's fast!_ she assessed then her eyes widened as she recognized who it was.

Juri stamped her foot and snarled as she stormed up to the assailant. "What the f-ck was that, Bunka, huh?!" she shouted at him. "We were having a f-cking conversation, ok, that probably means that I don't want you to f-cking kill the guy I'm f-cking talking to!"

Haku looked back and forth calmly between Juri and the panicked, grimacing Bunka, whose hyperventilating nostrils flared as he tried to breathe. The strength of Zabuza's disciple's grip was more than enough to crush the bones of the prisoner's face like a sugar-cube under a cart wheel; and the intensity of the pressure had him paralyzed.

_I should have known it was him,_ Juri chastened herself. _This kid's been a thorn in my ass from day-one. What an embarrassment!_

"You dumb sh-t!" Juri growled into Bunka's ear then paced away. "Go on and kill him, Iceman, I don't need anybody this stupid hanging around. He's not worth keeping just to make it an even number."

Haku expressed something between a smile and a wince. "I can hardly do that," he said, "now that you've got me all curious."

The Demon's Apprentice looked back at the young ninja. The imprisoned boy's tensed eyelids were pressed tight around Haku's intruding fingertips, and water flowed from the corners of his eyes.

"Can you hear me, Bunka?" Haku asked him calmly.

"Mm-hmm," the captive gave a pained grunt.

"Drop the knife, please."

The boy's fingers shook then gradually let go of his weapon, and it fell to the ground with a thud.

Haku opened his hands at which Bunka slumped to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut, and rubbed his face. Though tall, he wasn't much older than thirteen. He seemed very awkward for someone with shinobi training, had long tangles of sandy hair, and wore an ill-fitting mist-ninja uniform clearly intended to house a much larger frame.

"May I ask why you attacked me?" said Haku.

Bunka dropped his hands and looked up with a sheepish, guilty smile. "I just wanted to see for myself how good you are, Lord Haku. Everybody says you're quick like a bunny."

Haku cocked an eyebrow in disbelief. "That's a very stupid way to satisfy your curiosity," the teenager replied bluntly.

"Yeah, I guess."

Juri rolled her eyes then paced away, pushing her sunglasses up to pinch the bridge of her nose.

"Sorry, Lady Juri," offered a worried Bunka belatedly. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"So," asked Haku hesitantly, "you're one of her, uh, our…forty rogue ninja, is that right?"

"Sure am!" he proclaimed proudly in a cracking voice. "A ninja of the hidden-mist! Or at least I woulda been if I'd graduated, but they kicked me out of the academy."

"Kicked you out?"

"Yeah, I was a little too scary for 'em."

Haku blinked. "Oh, is that right?" he coughed, unable to stop himself from chuckling.

"No," Bunka confessed, "sensei said I was too much of a fool to ever be a real ninja."

_This is too much!_ thought Juri, who spun back to set things straight. "The rest of our ninja army is nothing like him!" she stated defensively then loomed over the boy. "Listen, you," Juri hissed at Bunka, the anger manifest in the intensity of her voice and the hard set of her eyes. "You wandered out of the woods one day like a starving puppy, looking for us because you heard there was some action. But that's exactly what you are – a puppy, a puppy among wolves, so don't ever forget that!"

Already she could feel her blood begin to boil; the warm wind feeling cold against her skin.

"Haku's here because he's a killer, the real-deal," Juri explained acidly. "If you understood half of who he is, what he's done, and how many men he's killed you'd piss yourself!

"This is a serious business we're in. A few days from now we're going to kill us a hell of a lot of people and change forever the history of this stupid country. But look at you! What do you want to do – test The Demon's Apprentice like you could ever be even close to his level? Play with him like you did with the other kids in the sandbox when you were in kindergarten?"

Juri gathered herself, her hands clenching and flexing, with a look on her face like she'd just stepped in something foul. "The last thing he, or anyone else needs hanging around, is a scrawny, pathetic, fawning, wanna-be, f-cking-useless fanboy with a beta-male crush, like you!"

The woman stared him down, daring Bunka to say something back, but the young ninja's cowed eyes fell. "Now," demanded Juri with a short grunt of satisfaction, "get your skinny ass up."

* * *

Bunka escorted Juri and Haku the rest of the way, stricken and dispirited by Juri's earlier tirade. Every now and then he'd look back at Haku as if to ask him something, but chose to remain quiet instead. 

As they drew closer to camp, more ninja appeared, stepping out from behind rocks and trees, dropping down from the branches above, or simply materializing from nowhere within a whirling wind or mist.

_Yeah,_ Juri thought. _That's more like it._

They followed at a polite distance until the pair entered the ninja camp itself, which was merely a collection of tents and campfire pits set within a forest clearing, then circled around the two and bowed.

Juri kept her expression neutral as Haku returned their courtesy, then remarked quietly to her: "There are fugitive ninja from all over the world here – Rain, Mist, Leaf, Grass, Moon, Lightning; there are even some with insignia I've never seen before."

"Mm-hmm," Juri agreed then quoted: "Blood is thicker than water, Iceman, but money is thicker still." Her eyes swiveled around her as she drew a deep breath. "By now it's no surprise who we've been expecting," she announced loudly and cocked her head, "so here he is."

Her partner did an awkward double-take at Juri's terse introduction, looked back at the crowd of ninja, an ugly, wild-looking crew, and waved half-heartedly.

Juri looked on as the other ninja appraised their new co-leader, smiling when their expressions soured, and grimacing when they gaped and stared like he was some kind of rock star. Though she pretended indifference, she listened hard for their reactions which varied widely.

"So that's him…The Demon's Apprentice…," whispered one of them in awe, at which Juri's cheek twitched.

"…Zabuza...," she overheard faintly many times from close around her.

"Pff…looks like a girl…"

"…doesn't look so tough…"

"…almost killed the Mizukage…"

"…you know Zabuza was f-ckin' him, right?"

"…way-sexier than Juri…"

Juri glared. "All right, that's enough!" she roared. "Don't you all have better things to do?!"

The assembled ninja stepped back at once then vanished into the forest in blurs of motion, all except two – the boy, Bunka, and a thick-waisted kunoichi from the Land of the Moon according to the crest on her headband.

Juri puffed her chest at being challenged and set her hands on her hips.

Bunka moved to say something but deferred to the older woman who gestured obligingly that he could go first.

The boy gave a clumsy, fleeting smile, stepped forward then knelt to Haku and bowed his head to the ground. "I think it's awesome having you as our leader, Lord Haku," he gushed anxiously with sloppy emotion, "our CO-leader, excuse me please, Lady Juri."

"Uh," Haku offered, slightly disconcerted, "thank you, Bunka."

The expelled, former mist-ninja cadet rose crisply to his feet, then loped away.

"Ok, Hatsuko," said Juri to the woman, "let's get this over with. What do you want?"

"Just to meet the acquaintance of The Demon's Apprentice," she explained with an inflection that was hard to read. "Lord Haku, my name is Hatsuko Akagi," she said and bowed.

Haku returned the gesture then looked at her more closely. "Have we met?"

"Briefly," the kunoichi went on, "about two years ago. I was with the Five Venoms Gang."

Juri's eyes narrowed as she sensed Haku's tension. _Oh-oh, is that _beef_ I smell?_ she thought in delicious anticipation of a fight.

"I see," said the fugitive ninja understandingly. "Hard feelings, I take it?"

The woman shook her head. "No, they knew the risks, most of them. As for the rest…well, they should have known." She sniffed and looked away abstractly. "And I tried to tell them," said Hatsuko with a sigh, "that getting in Zabuza's way was like standing on a railroad track, but they just…"

"I remember."

Juri hissed disappointedly as Hatsuko continued, "It seems like a long time ago, even though it really hasn't been. But it's funny how things change, isn't it?"

"Yeah, yeah, alright, we get the idea," Juri interrupted, dismissed the rogue ninja and turned impatiently toward Haku. "Come on, Iceman, this magical, mystery tour has one more stop. Over her sunglasses' black circles, her eyebrows rose as she grinned. "You'll like this one."

* * *

Juri lead Haku back to the old factory building, a mean smile of anticipation on her face. She realized half-way back that her silence disturbed her new teammate far more than anything she could say, however provocative. 

_I can't wait for this,_ she thought, and imagined their prospects brightening. _Hell, maybe…maybe this guy just needs somebody to bring out the best in him, the way Zabuza used to. Maybe, though it's a long shot, I won't have to kill him after all. And that would sure make Shr Fu happy._

The young woman marched across the concrete courtyard, her mercenaries, still engaged in their training exercises, parted around her like fog – the instinct to avoid her wrath an unconscious understanding, and went to an alcove that sheltered a pair of painted, steel doors with cracked panes of wired glass.

Rusty hinges shrieked as she pulled one open, then entered with Haku following warily behind.

"Where are we going?" muttered the young ninja as they stepped into the recesses of the abandoned building.

"You'll see," replied Juri coolly. "It's a surprise. Since we're going to be working together, I thought I'd get you a present."

Juri lead Haku on through a capacious lobby that was worse for wear after decades of neglect. Dust caked the floor while grimy cobwebs clung to the walls and ceiling. Paint peeled and bare wires hung from vacant outlets.

The young woman continued on into a wide corridor, through another set of double doors and out onto the long-disused, factory floor.

Light slanted in from mullion-gridded, rectangular windows into the old factory's dim vaults. Juri paused theatrically and looked out over the cavernous hall – a field occupied by a seemingly endless array of wide-flanged, steel columns that loomed up as tall as trees. The centers of the bays were occupied only by thick concrete pedestals, stained with oil, where massive machinery once towered.

Juri looked over her shoulder at Haku then strode forward with a spring in her step. Her footfalls echoed in an eerie rhythm, soon joined by Haku's softer tread.

Up ahead, a man sat against the wall, reading some sort of lurid, improbable romance manga called 'Video Girl Ai'.

"Yo, Shin!" Juri greeted him.

The ninja rose and bowed. "Lady Juri," he replied dutifully, and then to her guest, "Lord Haku."

"Well, Iceman," Juri proclaimed grandly and gestured into the shadows, "do you like it?"

Haku came forward to see what she was talking about.

There, shackled and chained to a column, a small figure huddled sullenly. The floppy, blue-striped white hat drawn down over his sulking face did nothing to disguise the little boy's misery. In the muted light, his teal overalls seemed drab, and the white, turtle-necked shirt he wore beneath, grey.

After a moment, Inari's obsidian eyes looked up then locked on Haku; his hatred palpable. The boy's pale, young face grimaced and his nostrils flared.

Haku looked back at Juri questioningly.

"Oh, didn't you know?" she began in a sultry voice and draped her arm over Haku's lean shoulder. "He snitched on you." The ninja, Shin, nodded in confirmation while Juri slinked away then waved her hand at the captive boy, Tazuna's grandson, in bitter accusation.

"He pointed you out to the ANBU," she roared like a petulant prosecutor, her throaty voice filling the cavernous room. "That's right, this little punk-ass kid! Didn't you wonder how they caught up to you all of a sudden? Now you know. They knew where you worked, where you lived...who you lived with."

Juri strolled away, only so she could come back and waggle a finger in front of Haku's frozen expression. "Oh, yes," she went on, "the ANBU know all about that nice family who took you in, and that skinny little thing who's all sweet on ya. That's how they knew where and when to ambush you."

Haku's gaze was steady, but he swallowed hard as his breath started to rasp. The ninja shut his eyes. "How do you know this," he whispered weakly. "How do you know it was him?"

"My people saw it happen," reported Juri casually. "Once we found out you were still kicking we scoped out the ANBU, knowing they might lead us to you." The woman glared hard at Haku as if her fierce gaze could penetrate clear through to his soul. "Think about it, Iceman -- the way I see it, you got one person to blame.

"We were just gonna kill him," Juri continued as she walked around Haku, circling him slowly like a moon orbiting its planet, exerting unseen influence. "Lord Hirai gave me this…long-ass explanation about how we have to because of what he represents. But I thought it'd be more fun to let you do it; it being such a personal thing and all."

Inwardly, Juri rejoiced at the uneasy look that had come over Haku's now distressed countenance. "Fast, slow, or something slow in your own special, sick little way, it's all good. But if you pick that last one," she added, "I hope you'll make me a tape."

The young woman, Lord Hirai's first disciple, stepped back and smiled. Slowly, she raised her hands to bracket the tableau before her like a photograph: Haku standing and staring down hatefully at the little boy who'd set the wolves on him and who now glared back impenitently.

"Enjoy," Juri offered with a magnanimous air, then winked. "Don't say I never got you anything."

* * *

**Haku**

Haku arrived back in his room like a storm, slamming the door behind him. _That…kid, that f-cking kid!_ he fumed repeatedly as his fists clenched and unclenched. _Does he have any idea what he's done?! I should've killed him, right then, right there I should've killed him!_

He'd come close to doing just that. There were hundreds of ways he could have: lethal strikes to vital organs and nerve clusters; crippling, bone-breaking grips and strangles; then there were his weapons -- he carried kunai and a vest jam-packed with senbon. Any one would have been more than sufficient to snuff out the tiny, malevolent spark of Inari's life.

Bending to rage, the fugitive ninja's fist balled and slammed hard into his apartment's concrete block wall; a halo of blue chakra radiated incandescently from the point of impact as did scores of lightning-bolt cracks. The face of the block shattered like glass as did part of the hardened grout core behind it.

Unused to messy, emotional outbursts, the young ninja reeled back then leaned his forehead against the wall's solid, soothing coolness and shut his eyes.

"That kid," Haku intoned; his breaths coming in heavy gusts. "That stupid, f-cking kid…just handed me over to the ANBU like it was nothing. I-I saved his life…from those two bandits, and it meant _nothing_ to him!"

_You should've killed him,_ came the obvious thought – a raw statement of fact.

After a while he asked himself: _so why didn't you?_

A weary shake of his head was all the answer he could give. _My stupid, soft heart again,_ he pronounced at last as he started to calm down. _If only Lord Hirai knew that about me, how weak I really am…he never would have offered me what he did._

Haku staggered then slumped down on his futon couch, leaned forward and let his face fall into his hands. As he looked into the darkness behind his closed eyes, a strange, dim infinity pin-pricked with sporadic flashes of subdued colors, the ninja thought again about what Lord Hirai had said.

_To be a lord,_ Zabuza's disciple considered, feeling the weight of the great man's offer. _Lord Haku,_ he thought, and the words evoked entire worlds in his mind, _a wealthy man, powerful, with a castle, an estate and an army of retainers; a man in line to be Mizukage one day, who could shape Zabuza Momochi's legacy._

_There's no refusing an offer like this,_ he judged, but winced with misgivings.

_It's not really an offer, as such,_ Haku dissembled._ It's a trade – my service in exchange for his consideration._

_And what's wrong with that?!_ he answered himself angrily. _Why hesitate! You should kiss his feet for what he's willing to do for you. What the hell more do you want! He's a ninja lord, a counselor in Kirigakure. He'll be your sensei now; he'll take you further than Zabuza ever could!_

_It's a chance to start over._

Haku sighed and bit his lip.

_What about Mari,_ he thought and felt the scales in his mind suddenly lurch, _what about Chuuya, Mr. and Mrs. Tezuka and the rest?_ The idea of any of them lost amidst the coming conflagration gave him pause.

_Oh…um,_ he second-guessed himself ruefully, _well…I could easily warn them; take them someplace safe until the fighting is over._

Haku had given himself an easy, if unlikely, answer, but it only prompted more questions. _And what about the world they know, are you going to burn it all down? For that matter, are you going to destroy the buildings you once helped build; kill people you once worked with, who you once passed by on the street, whose shops and stalls you frequented?_

The ninja's fingers tapped a fast meter on his knee. _Chance acquaintances, that's all they are_, he rebutted. _In anyone's life people come and people go; that's how it works._

_You followed Zabuza, now follow Hirai. He's no less a man. He can lead you to greatness, just like Zabuza once did. Don't be a fool, Haku, how many people get a chance like this?_

The teenager willed the fires of enthusiasm to come then pounded his head with the heels of his hands when they did not.

_God, Haku, you're your own worst enemy!_ he cried in silent dismay._ Don't let your stupid sentiments mess this up too. Have you forgotten so soon?! Even if Zabuza did bring about his own ruin by selling out to Gato, you still could have saved him if you'd have killed those three leaf-genin when you had the chance! You know that!_

The young ninja rubbed his head. It felt so full of warring thoughts that it would crack open.

"Zabuza," he said to the empty room as his eyes began to well. "Why aren't you here? Why can't you help me the way you used to? You always made everything so clear."

Haku's face twisted in anguish as he again buried his head in his hands. Alone in the awful, oppressive silence of his room, the ninja continued to vacillate – torn by a decision he could not make.

Hours and hours passed before he gradually became aware of a strange sound that hadn't been there before. The ninja looked up curiously, almost happy at the relief this distraction brought. Haku's grey eyes swept the room for its source, a faint tapping like a metronome's meter or a grandfather clock ticking away the seconds, then settled in the direction of the window.

Rising to his feet he looked through the glass panes; looked, but found nothing. Gradually, he dropped his head as he followed the noise and glanced toward the bottom of the disused radiator that sat beneath the window sill. There, a small puddle of water glistened. Haku gasped and his eyes goggled at the surreal sight: in a tight circle around the dripping pressure-release valve, there orbited through the air a tiny eel composed entirely of water.

* * *

_Hi, me again. So what did you think? I always worry that my chapters are too long, have too much to keep track of, or are maybe too much talk and not enough action (sorry, can't be helped sometimes). Transition chapters are always hard for me. Anyway, if you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please let me know :) BTW, thanks, wingsofeagle, I fixed that thing._

_Thanks all! -- Jono'_

_And yes, I know I BORROWED that line from Pirates of the Carribean (sticks tongue out)._


	13. Chapter 13

_Hi, everybody! Me again. Hope you like Chapter 13._

_--Jono'

* * *

_

**Mari**

"Aw, come ON, Mari," Ryuunosuke's pleading, insistent, high-but-husky voice grated in his sister's ears.

"Yeah," agreed Gengo in a weary groan.

Mari's eye twitched as she tried and failed to ignore her younger brothers while they slogged up the steep, gravel road, the relentlessly upward inclination of which had sapped the last of their will.

_Candy-asses_, the girl grumbled to herself, though it was only from force of habit bred from the reflexive, familial hostility that existed between them.

Really, she could hardly blame these two for wanting to rest. She must have dragged them all over half the island – along the docks, through town, around the new construction that surrounded the Great Naruto Bridge, then high up into the wooded hills and arid, scrub-covered bluffs, all in search of Chuuya who had not come home last night.

Mari mopped her slick forehead with a sleeve as she looked up their forest-bounded path then startled, turning sharply, when Gengo stumbled and yelped, barely catching himself from a hard, face-first fall.

The two sweaty, dust-covered boys looked at her with pained, pitiful expressions, slumped shoulders and wobbly legs. They were both in their very early teens, at that stage when they could embody the worst aspects of both very young children and fully grown men, and seemed to switch back and forth.

"Ok," the girl relented with stoic acceptance. "Let's rest, but just for a little bit."

The two brothers broke out with agonized smiles as they reeled to the side of the road and collapsed in a shady spot.

Though Mari's expression soured at this delay she quickly and eagerly joined them. Her feet hurt, and her legs and back ached from all the walking. She was hot, tired, sweaty, hungry, thirsty and otherwise miserable; and, after a whole day of searching, hadn't found so much as a trace of Chuuya. They'd talked to his few friends, made inquiries with everyone who knew him, and visited all his known haunts. When it came to where else they could look and who else they could ask, she was running out of ideas.

"Dammit," the dark-haired girl hissed to herself, ignoring hunger pangs, "where the hell could he BE?"

Mom and dad were freaking out to a whole new level she'd never seen before, or even knew existed. And really, Mari couldn't blame them.

Uncle Maceo had reported to them, in his own anxious but understated way, that little Chuuya had been hurt in a fight with two dangerous criminals, none other than those known murderers Zori and Waraji, and was then carried home by some of the men who'd witnessed the encounter.

_And just what the hell was THAT all about?_ Mari wondered. _Haku's been training Chuuya for like two weeks and the little freak already thinks he can take on grown men? And how are Zori and Waraji even able to walk after what Haku did to them?_

_Huh,_ the girl judged, _I guess he didn't beat 'em hard enough._

Maceo had then allowed as how he'd iced Chuuya's broken hand and brought him around with smelling salts, but then the kid just rushed out!

Mr. and Mrs. Tezuka, having then subjected everyone in the neighborhood to a testy interrogation, had discovered that their youngest child had reappeared subsequently in the company of the ANBU that night at some bar or other. The worried parents' attempts at talking to the mist-ninja themselves were frustrated, for they were nowhere to be found, but a number of The Junk's patrons attested that the young, pretty one of their number, a kunoichi named Aya, had conducted Chuuya safely home.

The information that the boy's parents learned only confused them even more: that their son was involved somehow with the ninja of the Hidden Mist, coupled with the outstanding fact that he had _not_ come home.

The added, apparently-unrelated coincidence that their soft-spoken young border, Hiroo Okame, who they'd taken in out of charity due to his hard circumstances (who was, unbeknownst to them, Haku, the Demon's Apprentice, the same one supposedly killed at the battle at the bridge a couple of months back, an infamous fugitive from the Land of Water, and Zabuza Momochi's sole disciple) had disappeared also, only fueled their dismay.

_This is bad!_ considered Mari as a sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach, _really bad._

The girl found herself wondering where her fled ninja might be, if he was alright and if he would ever be back. And though she almost thought it silly to worry about his safety considering his tremendous hidden strength, she found she couldn't help it and in fact had been looking for any sign of Haku too while she searched for her little brother.

_You're being ridiculous,_ Mari determined, grumbling at herself. _Do you really think you can find Haku now, today, when it took a whole pack of hunter-ninja like two months? You need to stay focused._

In truth, for Haku to vanish as he had after his brutal fight with the ANBU, while deeply troubling to Mari personally, did not seem entirely unreasonable or unexpected in the abstract. To say that Haku could 'handle himself' was an understatement beyond belief.

_But poor Chuuya! _Mari worried._ He's way too small, strange, silly and stupid to be on his own!_

_Oh, Chuuya_, she continued, lanced with guilt and an almost paralytic feeling of helplessness.

Mari was keenly aware that she, more than anyone else, bore the lion's share of responsibility for this. She'd been the one who'd seen to Haku's care and conspired to keep his true identity concealed. She'd been the one who'd brought him home in the first place, then encouraged him to train and befriend Chuuya.

_I thought it'd be good for the little guy,_ mused Mari in retrospective remorse.

Of course, it didn't take much analysis at all for her to tie Haku's brawl with the ANBU and his subsequent departure to her temperamental little brother's going ape-sh-t.

The idea of her parents finding out the whole, sordid story whirled like a cold wind across Mari's consciousness. For transgressions like these there could very well be no forgiveness, but for right now that was the least of her worries.

_Chuuya,_ she thought again with redirected anger and shook her head furiously. _Stupid little brat! You're as slow and soft as an earthworm…and so stupid you'd forget to eat or sleep if we didn't tell you where, when and how! Just what the hell do you think you're doing going off like this?!_

"Mari?" Ryuunosuke's unwelcome voice crashed in on her introspection. "Can we stop at Mrs. Funikoshi's patty stand? I mean, it's just up the road at the next bend."

Mari turned and almost said something nasty, but refrained. Being unkind to her other brothers was needless and inappropriate. Instead, she forced a grin and nodded. It was a good idea, after all. None of them had anything to eat or drink since dawn, plus they could ask after their missing sibling there.

"Where could Chuuya go?" moaned Gengo aloud from where he lay, propped up on his tan, ropey arms.

"It's so weird," Ryuunosuke chimed, truly mystified, "I mean, he's _never_ done anything like this before."

Mari draped an elbow over her knee and looked up the sun-baked road. The desire to press on pulled at her like an obsession. She might have given in to it right then, even if it meant dragging her brothers by force or abandoning them outright, if the girl hadn't passed the point where she thought it would do any good.

Ever since they'd started their search, Mari had kept a mental checklist of all the places they should look. One after the other, they'd checked them all off.

Again she thought hard for anywhere else Chuuya could be, anyone else they should ask but nothing came to mind. Try as she might, she could not force herself to think. Heat and frustration had gummed the gears and clogged the pipes.

"Maybe dad and uncle had better luck, or Jimon and Aito," ventured Gengo in a voice labored with weary and concern.

Mari nodded in quiet agreement.

"And Hiroo's gone too!" Ryuunosuke pointed out, piping with disbelief. "He didn't come home from work yesterday. What do you think happened to him?"

"I guess he coulda got robbed, like before. A lot of people get robbed."

Both boys fell silent.

"What do you think, Mari?" asked Ryuunosuke at last.

The girl blew out a breath at how hopelessly uninformed these two were. "How should I know?" she grumbled dourly.  
Gengo and Ryuunosuke exchanged hesitant looks.

"Well, you know…you're always hanging out with him."

"Yeah," Gengo agreed, "and you're the one who brought him home and took care of him after he got beat up before."

"Yeah, I mean, did he say anything or…"

Mari's eyes went wide and intense as she turned to them and blurted, "I don't know, ok?!"

Both brothers' expressions squirmed a little in anxious puzzlement.

"I…I'm sure he's ok," offered Ryuunosuke with surprising tenderness as he responded to the tremor in his sister's voice. "I mean, since he lived on his own for so long he probably knows how to take care of himself even if he is a little scrawny and girly-looking."

"Yeah!" Gengo affirmed supportively and staggered over to put his arm around the girl, "and Chuuya'll be ok too."

Mari, warmed by her brothers' affection and confidence, looked at them in turn and smiled. Though she hated to admit it, Gengo and Ryuunosuke, and all her brothers, really had their moments. Granted, their best qualities were hard to see, but when they did surface she always found herself truly moved.

"Yeah," she agreed, swallowing hard and forcing away her doubts for now. "I'll bet you're right."

* * *

**Toru**

On a stretch of empty shoreline, Pack-Leader Toru Yamashite stared out at the pink and purple horizon. Incoming waves washed around the rocks on which he sat, sending crabs scuttling and seabirds rushing away on their little stick-like legs. Above him the early evening sun hung low in a cloud-feathered sky, mid-way in its arcing path toward the edge of the world.

The ANBU captain had spent most of the day evaluating his teams' reports and formulating a plan of action for the upcoming attack, and was mentally exhausted as a result. What he'd come up with was, without a doubt, the least sound and most contrived course he'd ever devised. Certainly, if any of his Pack-Leaders back in the day had suggested he follow such a plan, weakened as it was by sentiment and poor prioritization, Toru would have judged them unfit to command.

As always though, the man reviewed to himself, there was good news and bad news.

On the good side: first, although the camps of both the rogue ninja and the conventional mercenaries set sentries to secure their perimeters, they were not (by appearances, anyway) expecting to be attacked. Second, both camps followed a pretty regular schedule. And third, Aya's stalking-eels jutsu had provided Toru and his team with highly-detailed information on the quality and quantity of the enemy's forces, locations, how there were arrayed, and the layout of their main base of operations – an old factory building on the far east side of the island.

Toru smiled, warmed by the memory of one of his rare moments of genius, at having foreseen Aya Sakamoto's inestimable value as a member of his team. The girl had taken a lot of grief back at the academy because of her deplorable fighting and weapon skills, and had not been at all well-regarded.

Though her martial abilities had improved only a little under Toru and Orimi's tutelage, and Eiji's constant badgering, her more subtle jutsus and invaluable medical expertise more than compensated for those deficiencies.

_And there ain't nothin' like havin' good int-EEL-igence_, quipped Toru with a self-satisfied grin, adding: _or good surv-EEL-ance_.

The big mist-ninja barked a laugh then mused philosophically. _But it was those two idiots, Zori and Waraji who lead me to you, Haku. 'Told me right where you'd be and all about your new partner in crime, Miss Juri Chono, _he thought. _Ha! And they never would have gotten caught by that mob if you hadn't beat 'em up so bad in the first place._

_Kinda' funny how things work._ The ANBU paused, struck deeply by how complex the world seemed when its basic operating principle was so simple: cause and effect._ In any case,_ he summarized,_ lucky break for me, not so much for you._

_Of course, there's plenty of bad news too,_ Toru hurriedly reminded himself as if he'd forget.

First, Eiji was stabilized but still far from being able to fight.

The man paused then as he fought back his emotions.

_How many times did I warn that stupid kid, how many times?_ the ANBU's thoughts simmered as he shook his head. _And he still didn't listen to me: not as his commanding officer; not as his sensei; not as the guy who hand-picked him for his team; not as someone with a lot more experience, nothing! He'd ignored me; he blew me off like I'm some kind of f-cking jerk, talking for the exercise!_

The ninja's eyes narrowed harshly and his face set into a tense frown.

As his choleric temper started to get the better of him, Toru reminded himself that he was Eiji's Pack-Leader, not his dad, and he was letting irrelevant personal feelings affect his judgment.

_Yeah, so what else is new? _the ANBU commented sardonically, then promptly admonished himself: _There's a lot of work to be done, you idiot…and it has to be done with a clear head. You need to get past this._

Eiji, the young hot-shot, had assumed that because he could beat up most people, that he could beat Haku too. He'd been wrong about that and almost paid with his life. Arguably, he _should_ have paid with his life. In this line of work, even ninja prodigies got killed for mistakes a thousand times less obvious.

Still, seeing Eiji Tohei struck down, bloodied and near death, had affected Toru more than he would have thought. It wasn't the first time he'd witnessed such a sight, and he was certain it would not be the last. But the idea of losing another teammate, as had happened from time to time over his long career, was almost too much to bear this time…especially Eiji who was in the flower of his youth.

_Or Aya,_ Toru added, _she's such a beautiful girl, or Yukimasa, he's a good guy, or Orimi…_

It took a real effort of will for Toru to still his racing thoughts.

Though he hated to remind himself, he knew what the source of his confusion was. The Mizukage's personal retainer, Krishaney Rahaman, was on his way here, very probably to kill him, for some infraction great or small, real or imagined. Whether it was because of the Pack-Leader's disdain for the ANBU mask and uniform, his failure to kill Zabuza, or some nefarious plot the ninja lord suspected him of, it made no difference; the decision had already been made.

Aya's deception had delayed the man, and bought Toru more time to try and end his career and his life on a high-note by executing The Demon's Apprentice, Haku, but Toru was well aware that his time was quickly running out.

What made matters worse -- he could feel himself falling apart.

There'd been a time when 'life' had been, to him, merely a descriptive property, with no more emotional associations than say, 'tall' or 'short', 'red', 'blue', 'fast' or 'slow'. A young Toru had even killed his own teammate in a graduation exercise because it had been his order to follow, sensei expected it of him, and because the other boy would surely have killed him if he'd failed.

But now 'life' was starting to take on qualities he'd never connected with it before – fragile, precious, and irreplaceable. It was disrupting his practical mindset and making his duties untenable.

_This is ridiculous!_ Toru railed at himself. _How many criminals, renegade ninja and enemies of the state have you sent on to hell?! Now that it's your turn, what, you're gonna turn into a big, fat bag of mush?! You're suddenly going to notice how sparkly the stars are, or drool over a flower's pretty colors! Get yourself together! You're a ninja, so act like one. Do your damn job!_

The ANBU captain closed his eyes, listened to the sounds of the surf and drew a calming breath of the salt-scented air.

_This is no time to get lost,_ he chastised himself. _Stuff's going to get very ugly very soon. Your team is relying on you to pull this out. Now…get back to work._

_The second item in the category of 'bad news'…ah, yes,_ the big man continued as he regained his train of thought.

Second, Haku and Juri were going to be tough to deal with even if taken by surprise. Third, there was still an as-yet unseen commander behind all of this. He, or she, would be the real x-factor, and it stood to reason that if Haku's new boss had mastered the obscure ninja art of chiromancy, then he knew a lot of other powerful jutsu too.

Toru hissed a breath, picked up a stone, flicked it into the ocean then watched the water splash at the point of impact.

_The real difficulty here,_ the mist-ninja rationalized to himself, _are all the competing mission objectives. They've made things way too complex. _A grim smile flashed over Toru's bristled face as he tried to accept his own foolishness. _Oh, is that why your plan sucks so bad? Are you already making excuses for its failure?_

The ultimate goal was, in theory, to kill Haku, with Juri next in line. Following that logic, all four ANBU needed to strike together, taking The Demon's Apprentice in his sleep, if possible, in his apartment on the factory building's third floor.

However, Inari was under guard and would, no-doubt, be killed at the first sign of trouble. If Tazuna's grandson was going to have any chance at survival, then he would have to be secured just before or right when the fireworks started.

The big man shook his head, thoroughly disgusted. Factoring in Inari was a huge mistake. Yes, he found the kid's shrill candor appealing in some vague, paternal way; and yes, he'd promised his grandfather, Tazuna, that Inari would be delivered safely, but…

_When you come down to it,_ Toru explained needlessly, _the world is filled with little kids. And though it sounds cold, the truth is -- one less won't make a damn bit of difference in the grand scheme of things._

_To divert Yukimasa to rescue Inari, when you only have four ninja to begin with, makes no sense whatsoever. _

Another problem was that most of the rogue ninja were encamped out in the forest, away from the old factory. Splitting his team to attack both sites simultaneously was out of a question, especially being one short. Attacking the ninja camp first presented too many problems. The idea that his ANBU team could kill all forty ninja mercenaries quickly and quietly without any word of warning getting back to the main base seemed incredibly unlikely.

No, the ANBU would have to hit the factory first, meaning that a company of pissed-off ninja would come charging in no more than ten minutes later to see what all the commotion was about. Toru's team would have to complete all mission objectives within that time then regroup to handle the rogue ninjas' counter-assault.

Then lastly, and here Toru looked toward the heavens, there was the issue of what to do with Tazuna's mob, who insisted they take part in this. They really were more of a hindrance than a help when speed and decisive action were what was needed.

They only real way they could contribute to the overall outcome was to have them attack the rogue ninja camp on their own. That could buy Toru's team up to an additional five minutes or so while the rogue ninja slaughtered each and every one of Wave County's well-intentioned irregulars.

Toru ran a hand through his short, brown, brushy hair then took off his thick glasses for a moment to rub his eyes.

When it had come to this part of the discussion, with Toru and his team, Orimi, Aya, and Yukimasa, gathered around a rough, mass model of the factory made from stacked match-boxes, a reluctant silence fell. They all knew the stakes. And when Toru had made his decision, they all accepted it without comment.

Yukimasa would free Inari moments before the others executed a 'structure hit' on the factory, focusing on the eastern wing where Haku and Juri's apartments were, and a great many of the conventional hired-swords were quartered. The Wave Country gang would follow behind the ANBU and handle what was left of them.

As Toru took another deep breath of the ocean air, he calculated what he thought the chances for success were.

"Saving Inari," he rattled off aloud, "four-to-one, for. Ablating the merc army past the point where they can continue to function and thereby head off their attack on the city: seven-to-one, for. Killing Juri," Toru thought for a moment.

_As hot-headed as she was before, and overconfident maybe from the last time we fought, _he considered then ventured, "I'll say: three-to-one, for. Defeating the rogue ninja company, eh, about two-to-one, for. Revealing and killing the big boss…no way to tell."

Now the veteran came to the part that really mattered. "Killing Haku," Toru stated with authority, "three-to-one…against."

That last assessment hurt but, though the mist-ninja knew anything could happen, he had to be honest with himself. Haku was a clever, fast, sneaky little bastard, and a deadly, capable shinobi in his own right as the young man had proved on countless occasions.

That he had beaten, almost killing, Eiji in a one-on-one spoke volumes; that he had fended off Aya's eel onslaught, beaten Orimi and Yukimasa together and hadn't bothered to kill them, spoke volumes more.

And that part bothered Toru too. Haku'd had the advantage but had not killed any of them as would have been perfectly natural, understandable and expected.

_Why not?_ the thought occurred automatically. _Was he just overconfident? Lazy?_

Even Eiji, whose body looked like it had taken each and every one of Haku's ten-thousand-needles-of-death jutsu which had penetrated through his armored cuirass-jacket like it was rice paper, had survived only because the explosion of icy spines had focused on his extremities and missed all his body's vital points.

You could look at it one way as dumb luck, but looked at another way…it was statistically impossible.

_So what are you saying,_ the ANBU Captain asked himself, _that Haku let the ninja-hunter sent to kill him live, Orimi and 'Masa too?_

Toru shook off the question. Indulging in such speculation would not help him or his team.

The Pack-Leader could, he realized, kick that 'three-to-one-against' likelihood up a lot by sacrificing some or all of the other mission objectives, but he'd already been through that part of the process. The plan was set; the decisions were made. It was what it was and they were what they were.

It was certainly possible that he and his team could accomplish all they would set out for with minimal casualties. It had happened before, but the Pack-Leader knew better than to count on fortune's intervention this time.

"'Bad leadership'," concluded Toru, speaking to the wind and waves, "will be my epitaph."

The man sniffed and squinted in the light of the waning sun as he reassessed. "No, it won't," he concluded harshly, "it's going to be much worse than that."

* * *

**Haku**

_In the words of the ancients, one should make his decisions within the space of seven breaths._

_Lord Takanobu said, "If discrimination is long, it will spoil."_

_Lord Naoshige said, "When matters are done leisurely, seven out of ten will turn out badly. A warrior is a person who does things quickly.''_

_When your mind is going hither and thither, discrimination will never be brought to a conclusion. With an intense, fresh and un-delaying spirit, one will make his judgments within the space of seven breaths. It is a matter of being determined and having the spirit to break right through to the other side._

_Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, In Decisions

* * *

_

High up in the treetops Haku sped, moving like a blur from branch to branch in the dappled, late afternoon sunlight, with the wind whistling in his ears and the leaves rushing by in rippling streams of jade, emerald and citrine. His long, black hair and the hem of his blue tunic fluttered behind him as he hurtled through space, making not so much as a sound in his passing.

_Damn ANBU,_ the ninja stewed irritably with brow furrowed. His battle with those five implacable scourges from Kirigakure and the more recent sight of their jutsu-conjured, serpentine little spy in the deceptive privacy of his room burned in his memory.

_They didn't even let me rest for a day, not even one day just to think. How in the world did they find me so quickly?!_

With practiced ease, Haku's feet made contact with the next bough as he landed; his legs bent, coiled, then, with a finely-tuned rush of chakra timed to harness his considerable momentum, sent him flying onward again.

_These last few weeks,_ he recalled somberly, _must have made me forget how determined and resourceful the ANBU are. Maybe I did think I could avoid them forever._

The breadth of his naivety made Haku cringe. At this point he almost had to laugh at all the ideas he'd entertained about the future, having dared imagine it at times as a landscape filled with limitless possibilities, as if the last eight years of his life had never happened.

The young ninja thought of Mari and, as he had so often over their brief, unexpected separation, tried without success to put her out of his head.

Just what was it about her? There was not any one single thing he could point to that explained how he felt and yet, looking back, every moment he'd spent with her had made him feel like he'd somehow transcended his often lonely and violent past.

Zabuza Momochi had been a magnificent sensei. His pursuit of glorious revolution had been the overarching purpose in Haku's life, but being with Mari had made the young shinobi feel as though his existence had taken on, perhaps, an even greater purpose. Even if he could not explain, or maybe it was that he could not yet grasp, what purpose that might be, those glimpses of the future, more felt than seen, quietly thrilled him with the notion that he could be, that he should be, something more than any man's apprentice or a tool useful only in service to another.

_I suppose there's no choice anymore,_ Haku amended curtly. _I might have wanted to put my past behind me, but it's not ready to give me up. The ANBU have my scent, and since they're so determined to find me, and they obviously weren't dissuaded by the last time we fought, I guess I'll just have to give them what they want._

As The Demon's Apprentice approached the rogue ninja camp, a pair of sentries moved to intercept the intruder but quickly recognized who he was and joined in behind to escort him instead.

Dropping back to the ground at the campsite, Haku faced the two ninja who bowed to him then quickly leaped away to resume their duties.

As he looked around, the sight of the motley collection of weather-beaten tents, the blackened, stone-bordered fire pits, hastily-erected water stations, and the cagey, feral-yet-world-weary expressions on the faces of those ninja who were about, brought back memories. This was just how it had been with Zabuza's gang – the same sights, sounds and earthy smells; that same air of wild, edgy nihilism. It almost felt like he'd returned home.

_Some homecoming,_ the fugitive thought and folded his arms, bitter and deeply chagrined. _It feels more like a setback, a…a punishment._

Haku's grey eyes darted alertly as a ninja, formerly of the Village Hidden in the Rain, approached. Though the man's smile was bland, polite, and self-effacing, the teenager knew better than to accept it at face value. The only people he would encounter here were ninja who'd all abandoned their oaths and any loyalty they'd ever had to their villages, countries and teammates. They were a collection of traitors, outcasts and criminals, trained killers who'd fallen from favor in some way, who'd given in to greed, ambition or any number of manias, grown tired of the shinobi life, or snapped under the weight of its cruel realities.

"Lord Haku," the newcomer greeted with a low bow. He was lean like an alley-cat and just as scarred, having weathered, judging by appearance, scores of perilous battles, but relaxed too so that his movements would not be hindered by tension. Beyond that, the ninja seemed reasonably well-kept, wearing a uniform of pastel grays that ranged from pewter to cumulous dark to almost white. Tufts of reddish-brown hair peeked from under a knit cap.

Haku returned the gesture cautiously, judging his host's age somewhere in the mid-to-late twenties. It was often hard to tell. As Zabuza had once told him: some shinobi age like wine, others like dogs.

"I'm Satoki," offered the rain-ninja in a phlegmatic, nasally voice. "It's really an honor to meet The Demon of the Hidden Mist's one student. I've never met anyone, you know…_famous_ before."

"Thank you," answered Haku, still somewhat testy, as he looked around. "Although, 'infamous' might be more correct."

"It's all a matter of how you look at it, I guess," Satoki remarked then hastened to explain, "The rest are off getting in some practice."

The young fugitive nodded then raised an eyebrow. "What about you? Shouldn't you practice as well?"

Satoki gave him a humorous grimace. "What, for this?" he scoffed lightly. "Hardly. Gato ran this dump for years, no problem, and he didn't have any ninja at all…just hired swords. This is gonna go down as your basic raid – leave nothing and no one standing. Simple." Satoki's eyes flickered as he gathered, quite correctly, that his new master had not merely been criticizing his training habits. "Or am I wrong?"

Haku winced at the rogue ninja's callousness in regards to the upcoming assault on the Land of Waves, at the bloodshed and destruction he was being paid to administer, but in the end had to admit that his was the right attitude given his choice of professions.

"You're not wrong," said Zabuza's disciple. "But there may be a complication."

"Oh? What's that?"

"Just before dawn, if I'm not missing my guess," the teenager ventured in a bland, careless and conversational way, "we're going to be attacked by an ANBU hunter-ninja team from the Village Hidden in the Mist."

"Ah," replied the ninja through a tight smile; his eyes widening at once with concerned understanding. Over time, however, Satoki's expression settled as he thought about it. "That could be a problem. But…as long as we know it's coming, there're all kinds of things we can do to get ready."

Haku nodded with satisfaction. "That's just what I was hoping you'd say. I can leave it to you to spread the word?"

"You bet. Oh, uh, you know this might cost you a little extra, right?" the rain-ninja added hastily, running his thumb along the elastic inside of his cap. "I don't speak for everybody, and us soldier-of-fortune types are pretty good about letting little things slide free of charge. But an ANBU hunter team, well, that's not what I'd call 'little'."

Haku shrugged. For a contractor to want more money due to a change in the scope of his work was to be expected. Judging from Lord Hirai's vast financial reserves and general demeanor, the young shinobi doubted he'd mind the extra cost as long as matters proceeded the way he wished.

"I understand," Haku allowed, then quoted, "a job worth doing is worth doing well."

"And," continued Satoki to clarify his understanding, "is worth getting paid for?"

Again Haku nodded.

The rain-ninja grinned, gave the young man an appraising look then gestured smartly with his index finger. "You know," he began again with a touch of genial, folksy charm, "you're much more pragmatic than I thought you'd be. Given all the stories about Zabuza, I had you pegged as one of those wild-eyed crazy kids; you know the kind -- running around all over the place with big dreams, big ambitions, and no understanding of the world. But I think you're gonna do just fine, Lord Haku."

* * *

Satoki conducted Haku to an improvised training range – a series of clearings in the forest where sectioned tree trunks had been arranged in rows and rings for weapons and tai-jutsu practice. Some of the targets had been hit so hard and so often with fists and feet that all the bark had flaked off, revealing bare wood. Others were lashed with long, black scorch marks or splatters – products of those practicing fire and lighting style jutsu, while others had been obliterated so completely that only the ragged stump remained. 

The grunts of exertion, the cracks of wood against wood, and the ring of metal on metal echoed through the air as Haku watched the ninja company train. The young fugitive and his guide walked passed a small group of expatriate grass-ninja, who slashed away at their targets with pairs of short, heavy axes, which left wide, crisscrossing scars wherever they struck.

They then stopped to watch a group of shinobi, formerly of the Village Hidden in the Clouds, slam their forearms and shins against each others' in a series of brutal conditioning exercises call chao-sao. Chains rattled from where other ninja practiced with kusari-gama, manriki and manriki-gusari. Off to the side, a huge ninja from the Land of the Moon pulled up a demolished target bare-handed, flung it aside, set a new tree-trunk into place then pounded it into the ground with a giant hammer the size of an oil drum.

"Tough crowd," remarked Haku nonchalantly.

"Yeah, we got all kinds," Satoki quickly agreed.

The Demon's Apprentice looked off toward the edge of the forest where he couldn't help but notice Bunka practicing. The tall, lanky kid stood in a crouch, an intense look on his face, with his tongue held fast between his thin lips. In his spidery hand he clutched a single senbon throwing-spine.

"What's his story?" asked Haku, as he cocked his head toward the former academy student.

"'Just showed up one day," the rain-ninja answered in a blasé, matter-of-fact tone. "'Kid wanted to be a ninja, but the Mist tossed him."

The two watched as Bunka gathered himself for a mighty effort, only to send his needle wobbling through the air a pitiful dozen feet or so, well short of the target. The aspiring shinobi hung his head and kicked the ground with the toe of his boot.

Haku grimaced.

"Yeah," his guide agreed, "it kind of hurts the eyes to watch, doesn't it?"

The Demon's Apprentice furrowed his thin, dark brows. "He'd be better off with shuriken. Even someone with no training at all can be reasonably accurate with them."

The pair watched as Bunka took another senbon from a huge cylindrical case at his feet, then tried again. If he'd improved at all, it didn't show.

"I tried to tell him," Satoki reported with an absent gesture, "but he's got this whole 'senbon' thing in his head now." The man from Amegakure's eyes swiveled toward his guest confidingly. "'Happened right about when we heard you were coming."

Haku grunted then turned away, directing himself toward the next series of ranges.

"Maybe you could give him some pointers, Haku…er, Lord Haku."

The young ninja couldn't tell if the man was serious or not, but in any case did not answer. "I'm surprised a kid like that's lasted this long in a camp like this, full of killers and lunatics," Haku opined, then gave Satoki a mild glance. "No offence."

"It's ok," the ninja allowed with a smooth sanguinity that The Demon's Apprentice was starting to get used to. "You're right, after all. But see, it's like this – there was thirty-nine of us before. When Bunka joined in it made forty. That's a prosperous number, being divisible by five and eight which are both lucky, you know, five elements, five virtues, eight directions, eight harmonies."

Haku regarded at him skeptically. "If you say so."

"Hey, none of us have any countries, right?" the man hastened to explain; defensive perhaps for holding such trust in numerology. "We fight for money, not noble causes. No one cheers for us when we succeed and no one will cry for us when we die. We need all the luck we can get."

Over at the next range, a small crowd had gathered to watch a ninja in flowing red robes and cascading waves of bright, blue hair, like something from Kabuki Theater. Through the heads and shoulders, Haku could see him move like a blur of crimson and sapphire. Moving closer, the pair joined the crowd, which parted quickly for Haku -- their new master.

The man who'd earned all the attention was tall and lithe, his movements filled with athletic grace as he slashed at the targets that surrounded him with a nine-section whip – a curious weapon made up of nine bars all linked in a segmental chain by metal rings, the last bar being pointed and bladed like a knife.

Noticing Haku's arrival, a cocky, knowing grin came over the lurid performer's face. The next bole he came to, he slashed with such ferocity that it parted in two, as did the next one, and the next, until all had been cut down but one. Wheeling around, he leaped in the air and landed in a deep stance then lashed out. The point of his weapon struck faster than the eye could follow, piercing the tree trunk all the way through; the point exiting the other side with an explosive burst of flaking bark and bright, yellow splinters.

The man paused in his pose for a moment then freed his weapon with an expert snap of his wrist. Rising then to his full height, he proudly accepted the accolades from his peers as he made his way with a deliberate slowness toward his new master.

"Lord Haku," he began harshly, as the voices of the crowd began to hush, and draped his nine-section whip back over his shoulder. "So you've come down to review the troops, is that right?"

The fugitive nodded as if he'd been asked about the weather. "I was in the neighborhood so I thought: why not?"

The red-robed warrior's face rose into a lopsided smile. "And what did you think of my demonstration?"

Murmurs, whispers and vague chuckles went up from the assembled ninja, but Haku ignored them. "You're technique is excellent," he remarked, "and with a weapon that's very difficult to master."

"My name is Fumino, and I was a jonin in Hoshigakure," he announced pointedly, then glared around.

"Good for you," acknowledged Haku half-heartedly, knowing that this Fumino wasn't finished expressing himself by a long shot.

"It seems to me that my accomplishments place me higher then anyone who's never trained at any of the hidden villages or endured any of their examinations."

"And?"

"AND," bellowed Fumino, who leaned closer, "it doesn't make any sense to me why thirty-nine real ninja should be taking orders from a skinny little boy who never so much as set foot in a proper training hall!"

"You're offering a challenge then?" inquired Haku, deliberately obtuse, but the blue-haired ninja refused to rise to the bait.

Fumino lowered his shaved brow and glared menacingly as he smiled. "I think the least you could do is…prove your qualifications."

"I suppose you won't take no for an answer."

The red ninja nodded.

"You will this time," said Haku with a smile as he turned and walked away, to a chorus of disbelieving gasps.

"Hey!" Fumino shouted and rushed after him. "You dare turn your back to me?!"

The ninja aimed a forceful shove between Haku's shoulder blades, but The Demon's Apprentice avoided the blow with a deft, effortless sidestep. Recovering instantly, Fumino wheeled at the young fugitive. Already the other ninja were stepping back to frame a wide circle around the two.

The Kabuki hero drew himself up with a flourish. "Even from as far away as Kuma no Kuni, we've heard of the Legendary Demon of the Hidden Mist and his disciple. But I didn't realize until I arrived here just how absurd those stories really were!

"Look at you," he sneered as if delivering his line, bathed in theatrical floodlights. "Am I to believe that the soul and the skills of Zabuza Momochi reside in you, an underfed whelp of a child with a geisha's face?!"

Haku watched as Fumino leaped high into the air above him, rising like a red sun. As he crested a dozen duplicate warriors appeared around him, and when they landed, Haku was surrounded.

"So, skinny little boy, what do you imag --."

Before the belligerent Fumino could finish his sentence, Haku vanished in a burst of speed, reappearing in that instant behind one of his adversaries. The young ninja's steel fingers seized the side of his neck at the vegas nerve while the other gripped a fistful of Fumino's red robes. Pivoting sharply, Haku spun the ninja hard into the ground. All the clones vanished in puffs of dispersed energy as Haku came down on top of him, the real Fumino, planting a knee in his stomach then driving a senbon through a series of nerve points throughout his upper body, then finally staking the jonin's shoulder to the ground.

The ring of rogue ninjas' cheers and boos were silenced even before they had a chance to start.

While blood spurted from Fumino's wounds, hardly detectable against his crimson garb, Haku looked up at his captive audience then rose smoothly to his feet.

"I think that should be good enough to give me an honorary rank of jonin," he ventured to them, "don't you? Granted, I refuse to accept that this is the best example of a shinobi the Land of Bears is capable of producing, but even so," declared Haku forcefully, "I maintain that my master was at _least_ the equal to any of yours."

Laughter and cheers followed from the young master's believers amidst the residual sneers and grimaces from his detractors as the crowd slowly broke up and the rogue ninja returned to their practice or went back to their tents.

Haku cocked an eyebrow then as Bunka rushed up to him, beside himself with admiration.

"Wow!" cried the boy, wide-eyed and exited, with his long arms flailing every which-away. "Just wow! I can't believe you took down Fumino like that. It's…it's…it's incredible! I've never seen anything like that, ever!"

"I'm glad you enjoyed the show," replied Haku, a little put-off.

"Seriously!" Bunka continued on, undaunted. "You're like, jonin-level at least. You should be kage or something!"

Satoki, who'd discretely dropped away to watch the fight, now reappeared, sauntering up to rejoin his new master.

Haku froze for a moment as Bunka's words resonated with him, and he remembered Lord Hirai's certain-sounding plans for his future.

"Do you think so?" asked the young fugitive gravely. "I wonder. Can you really imagine Kirigakure accepting me as their leader?"

"Kirigakure?!" Bunka spat in alarm, eyes wide and mouth puckered in revulsion. "Naw, Lord Haku, that place SUCKS!"

Haku startled at the boy's verdict, but when the ninja thought about it he apprehended that he really shouldn't have been surprised. The Demon's Apprentice grinned, then grimaced. "I what land _could_ I be a ninja lord then: Earth, Fire, Rain, Snow?" The teenager thought for a moment, grunted and said sarcastically, "Maybe I should try the Land of Bears…"

"Why not this place?"

Haku's normally unflusterable eyes widened, startled and perplexed at the boy's nonsense. "But," he pointed out, "there's no Hidden Village here."

"There could be!" came Bunka's enthusiastic retort. "And you could be it's first kage! Every village has a first, why not you? You could be the first kage of the Village Hidden…um, hidden…hidden…"

Haku and Satoki looked at each other and then back at Bunka as the trainee sputtered, stuttering and straining as if taken by a fit of epilepsy.

"The Village Hidden in the Surf!" the boy crowed at last and pumped his fist into the air.

Satoki broke out in a storm of laugher so hard it was almost incapacitating, while Haku stood and stared at Bunka like he was deranged.

"SURF NINJAS?!" Satoki howled merrily, slapping his thighs. "Ah, Bunka! You're killin' me! Who writes your material?!"

"What do you think?!" the boy chimed eagerly at Haku, oblivious of the rain-ninja's outburst.

The teenager balked at replying, not knowing what to say. "For a name? It's…fine, I guess."

Haku paced away a few steps with Bunka following at his heels. The zeal in the boy's face was starting to unnerve and annoy him. Frowning deeply, Haku grabbed him by the shoulders and stared into Bunka's eyes. "So tell me," the fugitive commanded, "do you really think of me so highly that you would follow me as your kage, your lord and master; and you would gladly face death if I so ordered it?"

Bunka stared back at him as if into the face of a deity. "Yes, Lord Haku!"

"Then listen to me," The Demon's Apprentice asserted firmly. "You must leave this place now. Terrible things are about to happen and you should take no part in them. You are not ready."

Haku shoved the boy back, turned then stormed off.

Satoki, still snickering, joined him.

"It's a test, right?" Bunka cried after his dark-haired leader in a shaky voice. "You're just…you're just seeing if I run off, aren't you? Well I won't!" he vowed in high-pitched stridence. "I'm staying right here…right here to the end, whatever happens!"

* * *

Off into the forest, The Demon's Apprentice continued to walk, long past where the improvised training and practice ranges set up by the rogue ninja ended, past any signs of human habitation at all. 

Satoki, perhaps unsure if leaving would be considered rude, followed.

"I gotta hand it to you, Lord Haku," the rain-ninja offered in passing, "you're more than meets the eye."

The young man looked off into the trees then up at the evening sky. "Thank you," Haku replied glumly. "I like to think so."

Satoki smiled slightly. "That was nice what you tried to do for the kid, and as for Fumino, well, damn…!" The man fell gradually into an awkward silence when his master didn't respond.

"Say, Haku…uh, Lord Haku," he ventured curiously, "I know you have no reason to tell me, but how did you know which clone was the real Fumino? Can you see through ninja-arts or something?"

"Seven o'clock," the teenager intoned without much interest as he kept his pace through the trackless woods.

"Pardon?"

Haku stopped and pointed straight ahead. "The hands of the clock," he explained as if to an infant. "In front is twelve o'clock, to the right three o'clock, behind is six, left is nine."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that," the rain-ninja insisted, "but how did you know the guy was going to be at seven?"

"Human nature…they always pick that position."

A pained look came over Satoki as the features of his face pinched.

"When a ninja uses a clone jutsu," Haku illuminated, "they don't generally place their real selves in front of their opponent or even in their field of vision. Immediately behind seems too obvious too."

Satoki canted an eye Haku's way. "O…kay," he slowly accepted, "but that still leaves four and five, AND seven and eight."

"That's true…but it's usually seven. I think it's because four and five would still be at the target's right – the dominant hand."

"So you guessed," Satoki concluded.

"An educated guess."

"And if you were wrong?"

Haku managed to grin with genuine mirth. "Then I'd have had to figure out something else."

Satoki gave him a chuckle. "That makes no sense at all."

"Neither does hesitating when you're confronted by someone who's trying to kill you."

"Touché," allowed the rogue ninja. "Still…it seems risky."

A few minutes of silence fell between the two as they wandered through the quiet, darkening forest.

"Satoki," said Haku, "may I ask you something?"

The man considered for a moment then shrugged. "I suppose that's only fair," he conceded. "Go ahead."

"You used to be a ninja of the Village Hidden in the Rain as I can see by your insignia. Why did you leave?"

"The age old reason – what's in it for me?" Satoki obligingly answered. "Amegakure was founded on the idea that being brave and loyal is what leads to a satisfying life; that serving Rain is somehow better than serving anywhere else. And that works for a whole lot of people, generations of ninja one after the other. It floated my boat for a long time, but after awhile, the whole bit just started to drag on me.

"I mean," the expatriate continued, his voice rising sharply then falling sadly with his memories, "here I was going on these missions all the time, getting hurt, facing death, seeing things I didn't care to see and finding out things I didn't want to know and I was like 'what the f-ck'?! I'm the one doing all the sacrificing, and what do I get out of it – not a damn thing.

"If I'm going to risk my neck, I'm going to get mine. I'm going to get PAID, and it's going to be an amount I think is fair for my efforts."

Haku looked at him in attentive earnest. "I see," he acknowledged simply.

"Zabuza trained you himself, didn't he," offered Satoki. "You're lucky that you never got involved with any of the villages, they're all the same."

"And what about all the people you've agreed to kill – the people of Wave Country?"

Satoki glanced up in surprise. "We're ninja…that's what we do. I mean, you know better than me, am I right?" the grey-uniformed man stated lightly. "I didn't invent that, but that's the way it is. Besides, people die all the time – accidents, disease, natural disasters, wrong-place/wrong-time, pissed off the wrong people. Shinobi strive to be in harmony with nature, harness its energies and discover its secrets. Life and death are just part of nature." He looked up at his new master, a look of faint anxiety creasing his brow. "Kind of a weird question, don't you think?"

Haku fell silent for a time, staring up at the tree-studded slopes before him, with an expression of increasingly tortured preoccupation.

"Give me a moment, would you?" the young ninja asked at last, at which his follower complied without a word.  
Alone, Haku hiked to the crest of the hill and looked down through the trees into the unpopulated valley below. Before and around him, the leaf-laden canopies seemed to offer up their infinite shades of reassuring green to the darkening violet sky which had started to herd all the light in the world to a single, bright swath at the horizon's edge.

Standing there in the forest's brooding temples of silence, memories filled the teenager's mind: himself as a small child, playing near the hearth of the cottage he'd grown up in; then a globe of water he'd taken from the river, hovering in the air, bobbing and undulating in response to the influence of his kekkei-genkai – a terrible gift he didn't know he shouldn't have. His mother's look of alarm; his father's blank-faced, murderous fury. His house filled suddenly by a thousand icy lances, cold and clear, or white, or lightly blue or grey…some glistening and crimson red.

Strength ebbed from Haku's body as he stood there, frozen, trembling and helpless before his history's pitiless onslaught, with tears welling in his eyes.

The sum of the young ninja's life rolled onward: Meeting Zabuza for the first time on that far-away bridge and taking comfort in the man's cold words. Training, endless training, and hours spent at Zabuza's side – each moment a treasure. A thousand battles unfolded, each more furious then the last, culminating in the halls, parlors and salons of the Mizukage's splendid house in Kirigakure.

Flight then, from the ANBU, from all of the Mizukage's ninja, and most of all from their failure. Gato, with an offer far too good to be true, and his voice dripping with sweet assurances. Then Kakashi, the leaf-jonin with his sharingan eye, like some sort of mythical beast of inevitability; Sakura with her pink hair; proud Sasuke; then Naruto shouting.

"Naruto," croaked Haku angrily at the memory of that treacherous and despicable child.

For that little leaf-ninja to parade around in his orange clown-suit, with his dandelion-blond hair in disarray, as eager and endearing as a puppy and just as stupid…IT WAS ALL A LIE! For he was, in truth, an agent of upheaval: the cunning and terrible demon who'd destroyed Haku and brought his world to an end!

Even the most sadistic shinobi, and Haku had known many, might toy with their prey awhile before killing them. But Naruto…he'd destroyed Haku by preying on his inherently gentle nature, his hidden weakness; he'd destroyed Haku by helping him destroy himself! What sort of creature was even capable of that kind of cruelty?! Not even the devil in hell!

The young shinobi stood quivering with impotent rage, his feverish skin gushing heat into the evening air. But even though his unanswered anger focused the core of his being on that vile and duplicitous leaf-genin like a ray of light through a thousand lenses, his turbulent thoughts carried him on.

Death then, Haku recalled vividly, burning, electric death at the hands of Kakashi Hatake, as The Demon's Apprentice had tried in vain to save his already-defeated master.

Cold and darkness, until the darkness broke and upon it's lightening shores appeared the face of an angel…

_Mari,_ Haku remembered, reveling in the briefest moment of solace.

Other faces came and went: Lord Hirai's winning smile, Mrs. Tezuka's quiet compassion, Chuuya's fierce look of concentration, Juri's thinly-veiled malice, Uncle Maceo's idiosyncratic grin, Inari's intense hatred, then the vision of a golden statue of Zabuza raised in the great man's honor, towering a hundred feet high in the Piazza del Sangre, and lastly…the grey-eyed, partially-masked face of Zabuza himself.

_Stop thinking,_ his former master commanded sternly. _It's pointless._

_W…why…_? the student stammered to himself blankly. _Why shouldn't I think?_

_You idiot, have you forgotten so soon?_ The Demon of the Hidden Mist's threatening, baritone voice growled._ The mind IS the body; the body IS the mind. You cannot separate them. If you're working an equation then fine, some problems can only be solved by abstraction. But if you're trying to decide something important, then don't think…listen!_

_A true shinobi's spirit is expressed through action alone; action is the fusion of mind and body. Everything else is meaningless. Listen to your whole self. It already knows the answer. Your mind alone just gets in its way._

Haku's face was flushed, haggard, filled with trepidation, and shaken from the emotional toll wrought by the flooding memories. Breath pulsed from his nostrils and open mouth in short, desperate spasms, tears boiled from his eyes, and his limbs quaked like bare branches in the wind.

Having no other choice than trust in the words of his fallen master, Haku closed his eyes and forced himself to be calm. Slowly, he brought his palms up level with his chest, fingers touching lightly, elbows bent and pointing outward. Circling his hands wide around, the fugitive ninja inhaled deeply then pressed his palms downward as he exhaled.

In a very short time the answers came to him, crystallizing from the aether in a moment of clarity. After he'd made his decision, it felt like it had been made the entire time…just without him realizing it.

Haku's mouth fell open; he brought a hand to his chin in amazement then stared out at the forested valley and glowing horizon as if for the very first time.

* * *

When Haku rejoined Satoki, composed and refreshed, with only scant traces of an emotional episode remaining in the teenager's bleary eyes, the corner of the former rain-ninja's mouth twitched. 

The man stooped and looked into his master's face a little worriedly. "Ahh," began the man hesitantly, "you alright there, uh, Lord Haku?"

"Yes, Satoki, I think I am," the young ninja answered. "And thank you."

The expatriate's eyes canted in thought. "Thanks for what?"

"For asking…and for what you said before. It was helpful," Haku explained with a smile, "and I think you may have just convinced me."

* * *

Returning to camp, Haku and Satoki found Bunka still hard at work at a small targetry range, trying to figure out how use his recently-adopted weapon. His largely intuitive approach was not working very well. 

"Your boy's still at it," the rain-ninja pointed out with a familial grin as he cajoled his master with a gentle elbow.

Haku nodded then hummed thoughtfully. "So it seems."

While Satoki walked on, headed back to camp, Haku drew slowly to a stop and raised his hand to his chin as he observed the former cadet's technique.

Bunka seemed to sense the eyes upon him and turned toward the young ninja, his face laden with embarrassment. "I know it's not very good," he admitted plaintively, desolate-hearted and face puffy from frustration.

"Try it again," Haku advised encouragingly. "Let me see."

"Hey," Satoki called back to him through cupped hands, "so you're gonna try and teach him something after all, huh?"

"Yeah, why not," the young ninja answered then returned to Bunka. "You're trying to brute force it. The senbon is a weapon that requires a smooth, fluid motion." The Demon's Apprentice withdrew one of the long, steel spines from the quivers in his vest, coiled, then flicked his wrist in a serpentine movement which sent the missile flying in a silvery blur straight into its tree-trunk target.

"See?" said Haku brightly, "easy."

Bunka blinked and stared at the bole, and the senbon stuck firmly into it. "Amazing," he droned, then, with his spirits kindled by Haku's interest, picked up another senbon and tried to duplicate the ninja's grip. "Like this?" Bunka said then let it fly.

"A bit better," Haku offered critically, though in a good-natured tone, "but still too choppy. Here…follow along with me."

Night fell before too long, but the two continued on by the light of a blazing campfire. Haku explained to his novice student the fundamentals of senbon techniques, both as a throwing weapon and in close-quarters combat, along with a basic lesson in anatomy.

"Like any weapon, once you understand and have the feel of it your body will learn to accept the senbon as an extension of yourself," Haku explained. "That can only happen through constant practice, but once it's there you won't have to think so hard about how to use them properly. It'll be natural."

Without even looking at the target, Haku snapped his arm straight and sent a senbon streaking. Bunka squinted his eyes and could see from the firelight that the needle had imbedded only an inch away from one he'd thrown earlier.

The expelled, former-cadet grinned buoyantly.

"And then you can improvise, even embellish." Haku took out a senbon and sent it twirling around through his fingers, faster and faster, until he waved his hand and tossed it over his shoulder. Although the weapon wasn't made to be thrown like that, it sailed spinning through the air in a high arc and still struck the target right between two others.

Bunka pealed with delighted laughter.

Gradually, other rogue ninja began to gather around – drawn by curiosity, to scoff, or to hear what The Demon's Apprentice had to say about a weapon he was well-known to have expertise with.

Whatever their motivations, an hour or so later, when Bunka managed to hit the target solidly, almost all of the rogue ninja were present to see it. Scattered applause rose up, along with some faint whistles and muted cheers.

Bunka's head fell back with relief and a wide smile spread over his young face.

"Very good, Bunka," said Haku who clapped lightly then rewarded the boy with a pat on the shoulder.

A voice called from out of the surrounding audience. "Now show US something, Haku!" The request was joined fervently by both The Demon's Apprentice's fans as well as his critics.

Haku grinned modestly and looked around. "Should I?" he asked the crowd. "Would you like to see a demonstration of my technique?"

The rowdy gathering cheered him on.

"Oh, uh," Haku admonished quietly to his student, "please, Bunka, back up a few paces so everyone can see." Bunka did so, but the young ninja was still dissatisfied. "More," urged Haku, waving him back until the boy vanished amid the ranks of the rogue ninja, then, "a little more. Two more big steps," until at last: "That's good."

The Demon's Apprentice paced for a few moments as he studied his audience – as diverse a collection of killers as he'd ever seen; uniforms and outfits that ranged from the Spartan to the baroque; faces from lands near and far, and expressions that went from docile disinterest to outright hatred to rapturous devotion.

"As most of you no-doubt know," began Haku. "The senbon is a short-ranged throwing weapon, which can be extremely dangerous in the hands of an expert. Though they don't seem nearly as deadly (and they're certainly not as impressive) as say, my late master Zabuza's zanbato horse-cutting sword, they are more versatile. Targeted against nerve clusters they can paralyze either permanently or temporarily; used against major arteries, organs and eyes, they can kill."

Pacing professorially, he took out three of the long, steel needles and clutched them tight together, closer to one end like a dagger. "For close-quarters combat, senbon are underrated. If you bundle them, they're surprisingly strong. You can use them to block, stab in both directions, and you can also use the short end to hook."

A soft grumbling from the crowd suggested he get to the point.

"Sorry, I suppose all that was a bit elementary. Very well," Haku conceded with an absent shrug. "Here's a method I used when Zabuza and I stormed the Mizukage's palazzo as an example."

Going to Bunka's quivers, the young ninja took up two full handfuls of senbon -- as many as would fit bundled between his curled thumbs and fingers.

Peeking up, over and around the heads of those in front of him, Bunka's eyes widened as he stared in awe at The Demon's Apprentice, then hugged himself close against the onset of a sudden chill. The former cadet's shining eyes then crossed as a single snowflake alighted, cold and feather-gentle, on the tip of his nose. The tiny, white jewel rested there a moment before it melted away.

Drawing a breath, Haku extended his arms then rolled his thumbs against his fingers, spreading his gathered senbon open into a pair of spiky, steel fans. Like a bird unfurling graceful wings, the fugitive ninja circled his arms over him then brought them down and crossed them in front of his chest.

To the assembled crowd he announced: "Now watch closely."

* * *

_Ok, what'd you guys think...any good?_


	14. Chapter 14

**Haku**

_Each moment, only once._

_-- Japanese proverb._

There in the dark forest, fires burned and crackled, their flickering orange tongues rippled up the scarred flanks of scorched trees and sent curtains of bright embers twisting into the cold, night air where they mingled with a light snowfall – an absurdity for this time of year. The earth, torn and cratered, was littered with bodies, discarded weapons and dismembered limbs – forms that struck ghastly profiles against the oppressive, prevailing black.

Only a scant few minutes ago, the young shinobi Haku's arms had uncoiled in a sudden but graceful gesture at which two ranks of his attentive audience of rogue ninja fell before the eruptive spray of senbon that issued from his flared, outstretched fingers. The remaining mercenaries, those not stayed by shock or disbelief, retaliated at once with fire and steel, flashing lighting, obscuring mists, and clouds of lethal powders, but Haku was no longer there. He was…_there!_ Up in the branches! No, _there!_ Behind that tree! No, _there_, using gen-jutsu, disguised as another ninja!

The small clearing had been filled with racing, leaping shinobi, crowded with clones and monsters, some summoned and some illusory; the air buzzed and whirred with flying, razor shuriken, senbon and kunai knives, which went flying off into the darkness, stuck hard into trees, ripped through leaves or sank sickeningly into flesh.

But all was quiet now…and still.

Alone and quaking with fearful, shocky tremors, stood poor Bunka, compassed all around by scenes that surpassed all nightmares. He was only just starting to put together in his mind what had happened. The boy's eyes, unaccustomed to such sights, darted wildly while his bony chest heaved for breath like a leaky bellows within his oversized mist-shinobi fatigues.

The aspiring ninja startled at a sound, detectable only just barely over the pitiable groans of the wounded and the gasps of the gluttonous blaze, that of soft footfalls approaching through the smoke-shrouded gloom. Bunka looked up and his dread doubled at the sight: the unmistakable profile of the one responsible, the last man standing, the only one left -- Haku, The Demon's Apprentice!

For a moment it looked as if the boy tried to do too many things at once: flee in abject terror, grab desperately for his weapons, drop into a fighting posture, throw himself to the ground! Torn by so many conflicting impulses, the tall, lanky kid just stood there while Zabuza's disciple drew close.

"Bunka?" asked the figure calmly through the battlefield haze. "Are you alright?"

The fright-paralyzed boy gave no reply.

Haku examined him worriedly for a moment and peered closely into Bunka's face. "I'm not going to kill you," the young shinobi explained plainly, "if that's what's causing you such distress."

The ninja then turned away, crossed his arms against his narrow waist and shook his head at the carnage. "That was your first glimpse of a real battle, wasn't it?" Haku asked; his voice was different this time: lilting, low, mellow and slightly feminine as always but with an undertone that revealed the depth and breadth of his experience.

"I'm sorry," he offered then, knowing it was insufficient.

Bunka's lips wriggled and twitched as he tried to form words, but in the end could only manage: "why?"

Haku lifted his head to the almost inaudible question then sighed, "You deserve an answer, I suppose." The strange young man wet his dry lips as he thought. "The thing is – I couldn't let this attack on the Land of Waves go forward. There are people here who are precious to me," said the teenager in a hard, haunting voice.

Haku seemed to grow aware of how unintentionally melodramatic he sounded and so turned to Bunka with a demure, disarming smile. "Of course," the grey-eyed fugitive observed flippantly, "there're a lot of people here who aren't too, but…that doesn't mean that I think they should be killed and have their homes burned down."

Bunka choked then coughed as a drift of acrid smoke wafted past him, and he swallowed hard. "You…you killed all those ninja," he babbled, "all of 'em, all forty!"

"Not as many as you think – a few at the beginning and a few more at the end," Haku illuminated, then cocked his head as he recounted. "My opening salvo wounded seven and killed five. I'd targeted the ten I thought would give me the most trouble, but you rarely get everything you want. When the others reacted most did so out of instinctive self-preservation and let loose with their deadliest attacks, their most powerful jutsu, as I'd expected."

"So," the former mist-ninja cadet ventured, "they killed each other?"

"For the most part," answered Haku, who mused, "To turn an enemy's strength into a weakness is an old concept, but one of the most useful, I think. Against a _team_ of forty it would have been a difficult matter, but against forty individuals, well…"

Bunka grimaced hard, almost overcome with shame. "And I…I just STOOD here," he blurted, his face burning with frustration, "like some kind of freakin' idiot! I couldn't even make myself run away." The boy slumped, deflated. "I'll never be a ninja," he mumbled despondently. "Sensei was right."

Haku shrugged. "Hmm, about that – I don't know you that well, but it does seem that you don't have much in the way of natural aptitude," he offered. "Just a few weeks ago I would have agreed with your sensei, but since then I've learned that --," the strange fugitive's dark eyes narrowed as he paused reflectively before continuing, "-- even a hyperactive knucklehead…or a soft-hearted idiot could still be a good ninja if they devoted themselves fully to the effort.

"Having said that," Haku advised with an easy, fraternal air, "I'll tell you it won't be easy because you have so much to overcome. If you still want to be a ninja anyway then pursue it with all your heart, but if there is anything else (and I mean ANYTHING else) that you would find satisfying to do with your life then you should do that instead. There are a lot of other things I'm sure you could do well, through which your spirit could speak."

Silence fell between them as the two stood and listened to the gusting, crackling music of the flames.

After awhile Bunka forced a grin, then looked away. "Lord Haku," he began softly, dreading to ask, "um, would you tell me, I mean, why…? Was it just that I wasn't worth the effort?"

"You mean: why I didn't kill you too?" Haku ventured before answering in a nonchalant tone. "I didn't feel like it, that's all. You have a good heart, and I think you have something to offer the world. Don't think too much of it. Sparing you is no more than a great man once did for me.

"And on that note," the young shinobi announced loudly into the darkness, "to those few of you still alive, wounded, hiding or wisely playing dead, and I mean you, Mr. Satoki and you too, Miss Hatsuko, I commend you for your common sense. You may all go. I have nothing against any of you."

Haku gathered his breath and his thoughts. His brow furrowed; the dancing firelight lit the smooth features of his young face with a hellish, orange glow.

When he spoke again it was with a tremor of hard bass. "But I meant what I said about the Land of Waves – there are people here who are precious to me. So if anything happens, then I will devote myself to hunting you down. And when I find you," he advised darkly, "I won't be nearly as gentle as I was this evening."

Turning back to his younger companion, Haku braced him with a grin. "Bunka, whatever you decide, I wish you well," he said and bowed, then paused as he remembered something. "I have to go now. There're a lot of things I need to do, and I don't have as much time as I'd like in which to do them."

Raising his palm to the center of his chest, edge out, Haku summoned his chakra. A whirling wind arose around him – an almost solid-looking funnel as it drew into itself fallen leaves, drifting embers, smoke and snowfall. When it dissipated, the ninja was gone.

Absently, Bunka looked into the darkness where The Demon's Apprentice had been then muttered faintly and heartfelt: "Good luck."

* * *

**Juri**

In her room on the old factory building's third floor Juri Chono sat at a small table with her wide face hung over an open book, squinting doubtfully at its arcane passages. A pot of steaming, oolong tea sat at her right hand along with a half-filled cup. Her damp, black-rooted, bleached-yellow hair was wrapped in a lavender towel which sat atop her head like a turban, while a fluffy, black robe hung over her wide shoulders.

The book was something called 'Analects'; something Shr-Fu was making her read for her 'edification', but there were no characters, no action, and no plot, and so the tome had lost her interest from the very start.

It didn't help matters that a gang of the mercenaries Lord Hirai's factors had hired to destroy the Land of Waves were having an impromptu, pre-bloodbath party that consisted, to a large degree, of power-drinking and karaoke.

Juri's drifting thoughts had begun to contemplate killing a couple of them, just to quiet things down a notch, when she heard someone pound loudly on her door.

The young woman's golden eyes swiveled balefully.

"What's this?" she piped, "do we have a volunteer?"

A smile lit her face as her eager fingers tensed into tiger-claws, but then frowned at the thought of getting blood all over herself when she was fresh from her bath. It seemed wasteful somehow.

"F-ck off!" she roared instead.

Again the knocking came, more ragged than before but still insistent.

Taking a quick, bracing sip of her tea, Juri rose on her black-slippered feet and paced toward the door, stating: "Somebody, really, REALLY, wants to get their ass kicked."

Gripping the handle, she pulled the door open hard enough to create suction then stepped back when a grime and blood-covered body flopped down at her feet. "Damn!" she noted, "somebody's already kicked it."

From her vantage, Juri noted the man's uniform and its patches of grey shades, his knit cap, and rust-colored hair. "Satoki, is that you?" she exclaimed then hauled the badly-beaten rain-ninja to his feet.

"Lady Juri," the visitor gasped from his injuries as well as her rough handling. His face was scarred and bloody, and his back dotted with puncture wounds.

"What the hell happened?!"

"It's…it's Haku," Satoki stammered as he collected himself. "He just…went crazy or something; killed everybody."

"What?" Juri snarled with disbelief then glared. "That's ridiculous!"

The shinobi shook his head emphatically. "It's true, I swear! It just happened."

"You're telling me Haku started killing you guys, and all forty of you just stood there and let him?"

Satoki looked at her blankly and started to babble, "I—I—I, it happened so fast; I didn't see…!"

Juri rolled her eyes. "Ok, ok, I get the picture," she said in a voice that conveyed the extremity of her annoyance. "I'd better go see for myself."

In her haste, Juri rushed halfway out before she remembered that a change of clothes might be in order. Turning back to Satoki, she pointed to a chair and commanded, "Sit!"

In only a few seconds the young woman had changed into her normal vestments: black t-shirt; black vest; knee-length camo shorts and boots. Abruptly, Juri paused for a moment in thought, then gathered weapons – a tried and true arsenal of shuriken and kunai knives, then added to her belt a water-filled canteen and checked her pockets to make sure she had a couple of Shr-Fu's 'special' scrolls. Finally, Lord Hirai's disciple put on her flat-topped, black kufi and was ready to go, but when she turned back, Satoki was slumped over, face-down on the table, unconscious.

Cursing under her breath, Juri stomped forward, kicked him over then watched the former rain-ninja fall limply to the floor with the chair he'd been sitting on clattering after him.

"Oh, for God's sake," the belligerent woman uttered, threw up her hands in frustration when she got no reaction, then paced out the door, declaring as she left: "You're f-cking useless!"

* * *

After a few moments, Satoki rose smoothly to his feet, righted the chair then leisurely brushed himself off. By the time he made his way to the threshold, the rogue ninja was Haku again, having released his gen-jutsu. 

The young shinobi, Zabuza's one (and only) student lingered for a moment in thought, then shook his head as a sour look came over his face.

To the empty room he muttered: "Bitch."

* * *

Arriving in the dead of the night at the still-burning ruins of the training range, Juri put her hands on her hips and looked around critically at the carnage. 

"F-ck me," she intoned slowly then blew out a breath.

In a strange way, she couldn't help but be impressed, but the more she thought about it the angrier she got.

"Damn it, this ain't right!" barked Juri, as she complained to the flames and carcasses. "This freakin', cross-dressing weasel's screwing everything up!"

The woman's jaw clenched as she thought furiously, _What the hell is he up to? What is he doing?_

All at once, a thought occurred to her. Juri's eyes widened; she nodded to herself then raced off into the dark.

* * *

Beams of moon and lantern-light slanted into the factory floor's dark vaults. Along the outside wall, the ninja, Shin, having brought his own small oil lamp, read manga in the unfavorable light as he kept vigil over one lone, quiet prisoner – the little boy in teal overalls, white turtleneck and floppy, white hat, named Inari. 

While the shinobi guardian flipped slowly through the paneled pages, pausing here and there to enjoy a snack of cold tea and pocky, the child languished sullenly, sitting cross-legged, chained and manacled at the wrists and ankles.

The guard looked up sharply at the scream of rusty hinges, then rose as Juri Chono stormed toward him across the cavernous room.

"Lady Juri?" asked Shin, perplexed at seeing her at this hour and in such an obviously flustered state.

The young woman glared at him with predatory eyes, eyes that darted with adgitation as they looked all around. "Seen anything?" she asked simply but with a menacing air.

The watchman gulped at her intensity then shook his head. "No, Lady Juri. It's been quiet."

Tense and on-guard, Juri scanned the old factory's murky bays and vast fields of bare, painted steel columns, then stared hard at Inari. "What about him?" she rasped, gesturing at the captive.

"No, nothing," Shin affirmed anxiously, "been quiet as a mouse."

Juri's gaze narrowed as she watched Inari who sat there, head hung, hat drawn down over his brow, and arms and legs crossed. Even after all her bombast, the boy hadn't even spared her a glance.

Breath seeped from the woman as she watched a tear-like trickle roll down the side of the boy's face, collect at his chin then drop into his lap.

With a bestial roar, Juri cocked her fist and leaped at him. As she landed, uncoiling into her strike, her fist slammed into Inari's pale, young face which shattered like glass under the thunderous, irresistible impact, sent shards bursting into the air and the cratered remainder of his head flying from his shoulders, bouncing then skittering over the concrete floor.

Shin jumped, brought his arms over his face, and yelped in alarm at the unexpected brutality, then slowly recovered when he noticed there was no blood.

Juri turned on the guard accusingly; her face rising close to his. "I suppose you didn't notice Haku sneak in here, grab Inari, and replace him with an ice clone?"

The stunned, panicked ninja shook his head.

Without warning, Juri bladed her fingers and thrust both hands into the guard's abdomen, piercing flesh and seizing hold of his short ribs from underneath. Pulling down sharply, the young woman tore Shin's belly open and spilled its gory contents to the floor in a hot, sickening splatter. Grabbing then behind the man's head, Juri threw him down face-first into his own writhing innards.

"I'll bet you noticed that, huh?"

* * *

The factory's metal doors flew open before Juri's furious, two-handed shove as she marched out into the courtyard. The surrounding facades were dim but some of the windows were bright with life and the nocturnal, shadow-puppet antics of the festive mercenaries within. The muffled sounds of their merriment grated on the girl's nerves; seeming to make her worsening situation that much more acute. 

Along the parapets, paper lanterns hung at intervals – spheres of glowing yellow, alongside the dark, gum-drop shapes of Shr-Fu's iron bells.

"Goddam it," Juri cursed aloud to herself, "this sh-t is getting out of hand."_Alright,_ she thought, trying to adjust to this turn of events, _calm down…first thing I do is tell the sentries that Haku's turned on us, and to keep an eye out. Then I got to tell Lord Hirai, and then I got to track down that sissy little punk-ass freak...before he…can do any…more…damage._

Transported as she was by anger, and her mind whirling at the ramifications, the young woman's savage face went slack at what she saw when she turned her head. Slowly, Juri drew to a halt and stared dumbly at what the moon and lanterns conflicting rays revealed, blinking twice before her mouth fell open in horror.

"Oh, sh-t."

* * *

Pensively and with eyes downcast, Juri followed Lord Hirai, not wanting to even guess what dark verses played through the old ninja-lord's mind, as they wandered through his transformed garden. 

Frozen grass and frost-inundated gravel crunched underfoot in places. Icicles draped in rows of thin, delicate straws or hung like stalactites, thick as tusks. Snow mounded over the garden's tiny pond, now frozen solid, and clung to the trees' still-verdant branches. Blooms glistened like jewels in the moonlight, encased in crystalline sheaths of ice.

So far Lord Hirai had kept silent, which worried Juri much more than anything he could have said given how verbose he was usually. Her venerable master towered in his jade and silver knee-coat, ornamented with embroidered waves, as he tracked through the rolling, virgin-white drifts, leaving crisp, dark footprints behind him.

By degrees Lord Hirai stopped, looked up then turned slowly around, his face congealing into a dreadful scowl. Juri cringed in anticipation of the man's wrath, then spun as she realized that it was not she he was looking at.

There at the garden's edge, with his face half-lit by the faint glow, stood Haku. Over his right shoulder he carried the small, unconscious form of Inari, whose scant weight burdened the ninja no more than if the boy were a stray hair.

"'Evening," Haku announced calmly, his breath misting in the cool air. The teenager's expression was infuriatingly calm; his black hair flowed just over the collar of his indigo tunic.

Lord Hirai's steely eyes bored a hole through him.

Taking a moment to compose himself, the Counselor from Kirigakure straightened then clasped his hands at his waist.

"What is the meaning of this," the silver-haired man began sonorously from where he stood, ankle-deep in the sparkling snow, then gestured around at his winter-gripped garden, "have you come to gloat over your…appalling act of vandalism?"

The accused's brow furrowed.

"What?" replied Haku in slightly exaggerated amazement. "Vandalism?" he suggested rhetorically then shook his head. "No, Lord Hirai. Your garden was beautiful before…and now I've made it even more so."

Juri gulped at this exchange, struck to the core at Haku's betrayal of her master, but relieved just the same that her rival for his attention and generosity had shown his true colors.

Though the young woman's expression remained grave, Juri suppressed a smile, for she was Lord Hirai's favorite once again and was VERY likely going to get to kill Haku after all…if Shr-Fu didn't hog that pleasure all to himself!

Lord Hirai gasped at The Demon's Apprentice's heresy. "You think THIS is beautiful?" his indignant, statesman's voice rose to a dangerous pitch.

"Of course," Haku remarked in earnest, and gave the garden a fond look. "It's just like the land where I grew up – a beautiful, white, wind-swept, snow-covered landscape, stark, austere and clean." He gave the ninja-lord a curious, upward glance. "Don't you like it this way?"

The counselor scowled, now certain he was being mocked.

"I guess everyone has their own idea of what beauty is," Haku continued in feigned regret, yet with an annoying edge that made it clear he was trying to make a broader point.

The tall, ancient figure tilted his chin then intoned with a dignified, put-upon air: "I take it I have your answer."

"Yes, Lord Hirai," affirmed Haku diplomatically. "As you've ascertained, I'm afraid I must decline. I believe your's was an offer made in good faith, and so I felt obligated to tell you in person."

"You have a strange sense of propriety," the councilman replied, inhaled then shut his eyes, his disappointment deep and hurtful in his lined, aged face. "Would you do me the courtesy of at least explaining why you've cast aside the promise of such a glorious future so callously?"

"I would, Lord Hirai, but," the young ninja stopped, then frowned awkwardly as he thought, "it would be difficult."

Lord Hirai laughed direly, a sound that reverberated harshly from the old factory's surrounding walls, as he shook his head. "Yes, I'm sure. I remember my youth – a time without direction, spent on frivolous passions. I had thought you were different, so perhaps it's my mistake. It's a shame though," he sighed in a grandfatherly way, then ventured, "You could have been truly great – a ninja lord respected by history, and a man your late master would have been proud of."

The old man gave the teenager a familial, forgiving grin, then abruptly snapped his fingers; Haku's hand was already in motion. A metallic chime rang out in the darkness as The Demon's Apprentice's senbon clattered off the lip of one of the courtyards bells just as they began to sound.

The ninja lord looked at him in surprise, as did Juri.

_How…how did he do that?_ she wondered. _No one's ever stopped that attack._

"Daoist bell magic," Haku observed, "I've seen this before, Lord Hirai. You use those bells and the chiromantic spells written upon them to warn of strangers approaching, and you can use them to kill. But as you see, I know that if you disrupt the sound, it spoils the effect.

"As to what you said earlier --," the young ninja continued then drew silent for a moment. His thin brow lifted curiously as he listened to the distance before he fell into rhythm right where he'd left off, "-- I've made my decision and am content to live or die by it. Either way, I can only hope my late master would think well of me."

"So be it," the man allowed, then glanced down at his student. "Juri?" Lord Hirai prevailed, at which the young woman looked up sharply. "Kill him."

Juri's anxious fists balled then snapped into open tiger-palms as she leaped with ravenous glee toward Zabuza's disciple.

The ninja looked up with a quick, abstract glance then leaped away just before Lord Hirai's vengeful student was able to close in on him. "Wait!" Haku blurted suddenly and held up his hand. "Now's not the time."

The remark was SO stupid and unexpected, that the oncoming Juri actually stopped. "What?!" she gasped and gawked at him with a cross expression as she skidded to a halt, "And why the hell not?!"

"Because," Haku explained knowingly and looked again into the starlit sky. "You've got more important things to worry about."

No sooner than he'd spoken then Lord Hirai's Daoist bells started to chime in dissonant unison, swinging ever more wildly and rising to a ringing cacophony.

The ground quivered and explosive cracks raced up the brick walls of the old factory that compassed around the three. Glass shattered and concrete split. Juri crouched, her face frozen in a bewildered expression, as the surrounding buildings slowly listed, leaned, sheared, then started to sink.

Surprised shouts and cries of alarm went out as the mercenaries trapped within roused. Some came flooding out the doors; a few smashed windows and flung themselves free, sprawling to the ground in dull thuds, practically naked or wearing only bed sheets.

Around and around, Juri spun and stared open-mouthed at the ensuing chaos; her amber eyes wide. "W-what is this?!" she croaked, overcome with shock, and raised her fists to her temples. "What the hell's happening?!"

"A structure-hit," Haku elucidated calmly, as if hoping his tone would somehow settle her. "Someone's using jutsu to pressurize the ground water, liquefying the soil and making it lose cohesion. The earth can't bear the immense weight of these buildings as long as it's in effect."

Juri rounded on Haku, her face boiling like a madwoman's, and clutched the air in front of her as she snarled, "What the hell are you talking about?!"

"The ANBU are here for a rematch," the long-haired shinobi tried to clarify. "I figured they'd plan their assault for dawn when most people are asleep, but they undoubtedly took notice of the mess I made out in the forest…and moved their schedule up."

Juri's breath came and went in pulsing, steam-engine gusts. "You!" she screeched, then ducked reflexively as walls of mist coiled around them, slowly sealing out the factory's crumbling, slanting walls and even the stars above.

Screams rang out. The panicked mercenaries, no longer governed by the purpose they'd been paid for, fled in disarray as the buildings cracked apart, continuing their ponderous and inexorable descent into the earth. Tortured metal copings and gutters groaned and shrieked, joists cracked and roof decks buckled.

All the while, that thick, unnatural mist crept closer as if to swallow up the whole of creation.

Lord Hirai's disciple fell quiet as she finally understood: her master's plan was finished. Haku was a traitor, the rogue ninja were all dead…all her mercenaries soon would be. The ANBU were attacking and had every tactical advantage.

There was no coming back from this.

Juri knew, in a moment of supreme clarity, that the old man, her master, her Shr-Fu would leave her. He wasn't the type of guy who'd stay and fight just for pride. To Lord Kissohomaru Hirai, all of this, including his investment of time and trouble in her was just one part of one strategy – a single, black stone set upon the 'Go' board of his world. The Councilor would cut his losses and vanish the way ninja did, for defeat here did not mean victory could not be had elsewhere.

Every muscle in Juri's body tightened as she mustered rage against the onslaught of cold reality.

_NO!_ the young woman vowed. _I'm too close! It can't end this way; I won't let it!_

"Juri!" Haku shouted to regain her attention. "It's over."

Juri snapped from her reverie and spat at him, "Not by a long shot!"

Just a stone's throw away from where the pair argued, a number of the fleeing mercenaries literally fell to pieces – with their heads, arms, legs and chunks of their torsos parting suddenly along gushing, bloody seams in the dark mist.

The Demon's Apprentice grimaced, grit his teeth in appreciation of the gathering danger, then became aware once again of the little boy, Inari, who lay slung over his shoulder and was just now starting to stir.

"Let it go, Juri," Haku advised at last. "Leave this place; start again somewhere else."

Lord Hirai's disciple was resolute. "Not a chance!" she roared back, with flecks of foam spraying from her curled lips as she defied him and fate. "I'll never give up, and I'll never forgive you for this!"

"I thought as much," the ninja allowed then glanced around evidently aware, as she was, of the onrushing but deadly-quiet footfalls coming toward them through the mist.

A blade flashed. Haku twisted slightly, just enough to let the point of the ANBU's sword streak past him, then shoved hard against the masked mist-ninja's shoulder. Still off-balance, the now-familiar swordsman turned and slashed back low at Haku's legs; the Demon's Apprentice wheeled a kick into the wrist of the ANBU's weapon-hand then pistoned the other foot straight toward his adversary's neck.

The boar-masked shinobi blocked the blow to the outside then ducked low as Haku spun sharply, almost catching the ANBU in the side of the head with Inari's flailing feet, but the ANBU could not react fast enough to evade the young fugitive's unicorn-kick which arced up from the ground and caught the mist-ninja full in the masked face with the sole of his foot.

As Juri watched the mist-ninja stagger a step towards her, she forced chakra into her hands so she could rip him apart, but a spray of senbon whistled through the air and studded the ground between them. Both she and the ANBU leaped back.

Juri glared at Haku who grinned back coolly, while the mist-ninja recovered, adjusted his mask then warily faced the two of them.

"If any of you survive," Haku proposed grimly, "and find you really can't let me go, then I'll meet you again…at dawn…and we'll settle up then." The fugitive ninja looked hard into the ANBU's masked eyes. "Yukimasa, isn't it? Be sure to tell your master."

"Dawn, huh," Juri sneered, distracted momentarily as she unscrewed the cap of her canteen and dropped two small scrolls inside, "like something out of some stupid manga. Fine, just name the place!"

"You'll all know where, when the time comes," replied Haku with a fatalistic grin. The ninja then lifted his free palm to his chest and held it there, edge out. "In the meantime, I've got some things to take care of…so I'll just let you guys settle things between yourselves."

A small flash of silver leaped from the darkness and twined around The Demon's Apprentice's legs and trunk, but before the sparrow-dart's trailing monofilament could snap closed, Haku vanished, along with the child slung over his shoulder, into a whirling wind.

* * *

**Inari**

Trapped under Haku's long, lean arm, Inari struggled and thrashed like a rabid animal while the ninja sped through the dark landscape, leaping through the treetops and running like an antelope over the forested terrain.

_How…how did I get here?_ The black-haired boy in the white hat couldn't quite remember. The last thing that remained clear to him was arguing with that weird kid. _Chuuya, yeah, that was his name,_ he felt certain at least of that fact.

After that, someone had just snatched him up, literally like a fisherman netting his catch, and taken him to this old building to be chained up and threatened by some evil, tiger-lady named Juri.

Inari searched his tired thoughts and definitely had no memory of leaving that place until he'd slowly awakened and found himself slung over Haku's shoulder like a sack of rice while the ninja was busy talking to Juri with all hell breaking loose.

"Let me go!" the boy shrieked and cried as the forest raced by like an inky river. "Let me go, you…you murderer!"

The assassin's stride began to slow until at last he came to stop, then paused as if to collect his thoughts.

On and on the boy fought. He flailed his legs, squirmed, punched and elbowed, all to no avail.

_He's only holding me with one arm and I STILL can't get away! How can this guy BE so strong? _Inari despaired, then remembered that Haku wasn't at all a normal person. He was a ninja like Naruto and his friends…only MEAN.

_Not just mean_, affirmed the kid as he pressed his lips together in a thin, hard line,_ but a cold-blooded killer!_

More than anything else Inari wished he was older, bigger and stronger, a ninja himself maybe, so he couldn't be pushed around like this. Someway, somehow, the thought burned, he would have to stop Haku, because if he didn't…

Inari shook his head furiously, unable to make himself even consider the consequences.

_But what can I do?_ the boy bemoaned. _Eiji was really strong, Toru, Orimi and the rest of them. They're ANBU and even THEY couldn't stop him._

Mired in the depths of depression, Inari was rescued by the vision of Naruto Uzumaki's beaming, supremely-confident face; the leaf-ninja's cheery smile and enthusiastic 'thumbs-up' right before the genin had rushed off to join his friends in a battle that the people of the Land of Waves still talked about in awe.

"LET!" Inari, motivated and reassured by the memory of his friend, screeched with all his might then gasped as he sucked in another breath, "ME!" he roared then again gathered himself, "GO!"

Haku's grip suddenly went slack and Inari flopped to the ground with a thud. He then furiously inch-wormed away through the leaves and twigs in the darkness until he found himself backed into a tree.

"So, what are you gonna do now," the child hissed hatefully as he scowled at the assassin, "KILL me?"

Zabuza's disciple stood there, a silent profile darker than the night, then blew out a dismissive breath. "Seems like a lot of people are asking me that," he replied blithely, then answered at last: "No."

Inari's face rose slightly with surprise.

The black shape turned toward him. "And you're welcome," Haku added.

The boy's eyes widened then narrowed at the sarcasm.

"Goodbye," offered the ninja in a flat, final tone, then turned and started to walk away.

As Inari stared at the departing Haku, his mind roiled with the implications. The face of his grandfather, Tazuna, returned to him and Inari paled at the thought of the old man's being in danger.

The black-haired boy pulled his hat down tight, snarled with fury then came to his feet, ran after the ninja and threw himself into a headlong tackle. Bracing for impact as the black outline of the back of the killer's legs filled his vision, Inari gasped when they suddenly vanished.

Tazuna's grandson stumbled, staggered but managed to stay on his nimble feet as he lurched through the darkness, churning up leaves, a prisoner of his own momentum. At last, he hooked his arm around a sapling and was able to swing around, stop himself then stand upright.

"Just what is your problem?" Haku's peeved and deeply unimpressed voice asked from behind the boy after he'd recovered.

"You!" shouted Inari harshly as he wheeled around, fists balled. "I'm NOT gonna let you get away; I'm gonna stop you…me! I'll…I'll kill you if I have to!"

Zabuza's henchman hardly reacted at all. "I see," he remarked coldly. The features of the ninja's face were almost indistinguishable in the darkness, but Inari could see the figure shrug. "Well, I guess you'd better get to it then."

Inari's nose wrinkled, but his eyes flickered uncertainly at Haku's answer. The child's vow had been dire and sincere to the core of his being, yet to him it still felt like the killer had just called his bluff.

"Would you like some pointers?" the ninja offered in an appearance of helpfulness. "Ok, let's see," he continued thoughtfully, "if you don't know any jutsu you could try to explode at me, striking quickly before I can react…or you could wait for me to attack, then counter…or maybe try a series of attacks in a combination of movements that compliment each other…or you could feint then take advantage of my reaction."

The long-haired fugitive opened his hands as he slowly approached Inari. "Those are the basic strategies of tai-jutsu," offered Haku. "What do you think?"

The boy's face hardened with determination at his enemy's patronizing tone. Glaring intently, he crouched then sprang. Haku easily moved aside, letting Inari fly face-first into the ground.

The boy came up flustered, missing his hat and furiously brushing dirt from his face and leaves from his hair.

"Exploding," Haku commented dryly, "a sensible choice. But if it is your wish to kill me, you'll have to try harder then that. It'll take you forever at this rate and I just don't have that kind of time."

Undaunted, Inari stalked warily toward Haku who stood by with his hands clasped behind him. The kid burst forward again, jabbed up at the ninja's face then flung himself at his leg.

Like a whip cracking, Haku's open hand slashed across Inari's face and sent him staggering back.

Collapsing to his knees, the boy pressed a palm to his stung, throbbing cheek and sat there in the dark in shock, with tears rolling from the corners of his eyes. His body didn't want to move. Pinpricks of light and dark filled his vision. Seldom in his young life had he been hit like that, and he knew that the black-hearted shinobi hadn't even been trying.

"Oh, come on," grumbled Haku snidely. "If that's all it takes to calm you down, then you must not want to kill me THAT bad." The Demon's Apprentice cocked his head and watched for any signs of life, then reported: "I'm leaving now, Inari. There's obviously no point in continuing this."

Pausing then, the ninja added as an afterthought: "Before I go, I wish to say that you are, without a doubt, the worst, most senselessly ungrateful person I have ever met. That you are a child," he gestured disgustedly, continuing in a venomous voice, "excuses nothing."

Though Inari's breath heaved and he choked, half-blinded with tears, the boy hauled himself to his feet. Again he remembered Naruto and all he'd said about not giving up; about not feeling sorry for yourself. He remembered his adoptive father Kaiza's bravery too and understood better than he ever had before that his struggle, though tragic in the end, had not been in vain.

_HE wouldn't give up! _thought Inari,_ neither would Naruto! And neither will I!_

The boy threw himself at Haku, screaming, with fists whirling and hammering in savage abandon. The shinobi gave way before him as the boy's knuckles caromed off his chest, stomach and arms.

"Ah! Well that's some better," the ninja opined, unaffected by the relentless attacks. After the vengeful child had managed to keep it up for a few seconds, Haku offered, "In fact, I think I'm actually starting to believe you."

Seizing Inari by the collar of his white turtleneck Haku spun him around, whirling the child off-balance then slamming him into a tree.

Inari's black eyes went wide as The Demon's Apprentice's fingertips dug around the bone above his chest, flooding his small body with incapacitating pain. The boy gagged, unable to cry out because his breath had frozen. His eyes pinched shut.

"I see now," hissed Haku intensely into the boy's ear, so close that Inari could feel the killer's breath, "what a nasty piece of work you really are – one of those kids who have fun pulling the wings off of flies or roasting an ant under a magnifying glass. I ought to kill you right now, Inari…I really should, and why not? I've killed over a dozen people tonight and I can't see any reason I shouldn't make it one more!"

The Demon's Apprentice released Inari and threw him down with a contemptuous flourish. "Actually, I should have let Zori and Waraji finish you off," Haku began in a frustrated, strident and ragged tenor as he started to pace in front of the boy in short, quick ovals. "That would have been the smart thing. They were going to cut you to pieces, do you remember that? Do you remember who it was who stopped them?

"Turning me over to the ANBU was a pretty funny way to thank me."

Inari lay at the base of the tree, still wincing in pain from the ninja's nerve hold, and clutched his aching shoulder.

"Do you know what they tried to do to me, Inari?" Haku barked, rushed up before Inari and grabbed a fistful of the child's hair then jerked the boy's head back so he could glare directly into his eyes. "Let me tell you – first, they tried to smash my chest open, then stick me with kunai knives, then they tried to cut off my arms, legs and head with a razor-sharp wire, stop my heart and lungs, then they tried to hack me apart with swords, and then have me devoured by eels!

"EELS, Inari!" the young ninja emphasized in testy elocution.

Haku shut his eyes and turned his face slightly away. "None of this even begins to describe how much danger they and you…and me…put Mari and Jimon in."

The angry ninja shoved the kid's head back and resumed his tense pacing. As Inari turned and tried to move, gathering himself to run away, Haku's hand flashed and a senbon sank into the tree not a finger's width from the tip of the child's nose.

"Try that again," Zabuza's disciple declared acidly, "and I'll put the next one in your eye."

Strangely enough, Haku's resolve seemed to falter then. His shoulders sank as he brushed a hand through his long, black hair. "After all I've been through," his voice issued plaintively, "and all you've put me through, it still isn't enough?"

Inari stared hard at Haku, then his eyes darted between him and the senbon stuck in the tree right beside him.

The ninja's face rose. "Don't do it," he warned.

Despite the threat, the boy clutched the long, steel needle and worked it free. He then pushed himself up hastily to his feet and held it out in both trembling, white-knuckled hands.

After three gasping breaths, Inari charged, striking at Haku with all his heart, but just like before, the assassin swiveled effortlessly aside, parrying the boy's arm straight with one arm while coming up from underneath it with the other.

Inari felt his elbow lock and strain, radiating sharp, lightning-bolts of pain; the senbon went spinning from his grip. In the lower edge of his vision, Inari saw Haku's open hand vanish in a burst of movement as it popped him in the stomach just below the breastbone.

For a moment the boy rose, feeling nothing, while Haku disengaged. Then all at once Inari's breath and muscle control left him. Nausea flooded him. His arms went limp and his legs collapsed out from under him.

Face down on the forest floor, with snot running from his nose and bile trickling from his mouth, Inari clutched both arms around his belly and struggled for breath.

He could hear the leaves' soft crunch as Haku approached.

"The very fact that I exist pains you, doesn't it?" Haku asked in a quiet, dolorous tone, and the boy could swear he sounded hurt. "Well…it might not be for too much longer, if that makes you feel any better."

The ninja turned to go then grunted in surprise as Inari's feeble grip caught the cuff of his fatigues.

The boy trembled in the darkness. "P-please," he blurted insensibly, crying, "don't k-kill grandfather!"

Haku squinted down at him, his expression screwed with confusion.

"He…he's all I've got; him and mom!" Inari continued in open desperation. "Please, you can't kill him!"

The ninja's gaze rose with fresh understanding. "You're his grandson," he muttered distantly, "the bridge-builder's, the man Zabuza was hired to kill. I remember someone telling me that."

Haku stared down at the sobbing boy. "All this time," the fugitive whispered as if to himself, "these last few weeks with me still alive, you must have thought I was going to fulfill Gato's contract."

Haku squatted down then let himself fall back. "I guess you have good reason for wanting me dead. Zabuza and I really must have made you fear for his life." The teenager's face pinched in thought. "I'm sorry about that," the fugitive decided, "for what little it's worth."

"Why?" asked Inari in a high, cracking voice, his reddened face glazed with tears, as he struggled to sit up, "why would you want to kill Grandpa? H…he never hurt anyone. He's nice and works hard!"

Haku winced uncomfortably. "My master, Zabuza, to who I owed my life, pledged himself," the ninja stated. "I had no choice but to follow his wishes."

"No choice?!" Inari shouted back raggedly. "NO CHOICE?!" he screeched harder. "You…you were gonna kill somebody and you're telling me you had no choice?!"

The teenager didn't answer right away as the boy's words seemed to pain him.

"You're right to question me," admitted Haku with a frown. "Of course I had a choice, maybe it only seemed like I didn't. Still," the fugitive paused uneasily to glance at the bridge-builder's grandson, then went on, "I would have killed a hundred Tazunas if my master ordered me to…even if I knew it was wrong."

Inari gaped at him in shock, astounded that anyone would say such a thing. The kid swallowed hard then shook his head furiously. "Th…that's messed up!" he cried, confused and angry. "How could you?! How could you just…kill somebody like that?"

The ninja hung his head and let the question fade to silence.

"Loyalty…devotion," Haku answered at last, rolling the point of his tongue around the inside of his cheek, but his words sounded vague and half-hearted. "It's kind of hard to explain." The lone ninja looked skyward. "I…I loved Zabuza," he began emotionally, "much like you love your grandfather. He was like a father to me, a brother, a best friend, a companion in a great cause, but most of all he was my sensei."

Haku looked into Inari's face and forced a pained, fleeting smile. "I don't know if you can understand what that means," said the young ninja, "or much it hurts losing someone like that…someone so important to you."

Inari's expression flickered.

It had been the same way between him and Kaiza; and though it was hard to reconcile any similarities at all between the kind, brave and selfless hero his adoptive father had been and the notorious Demon of the Hidden Mist, Zabuza Momochi, the boy couldn't help but understand at least a little of what Haku was trying to tell him.

"I endured his training for years," Haku recalled with a sad, wistful air, "went to war against Kirigakure for him, and became a fugitive from the land where I was born but still I was…happy.

"And you know something?" the ninja continued pointedly; his features narrowing, eyes flashing cold. "I would do it all over again, in a heartbeat…no second thoughts, and no regrets either." As Haku stated this his voice had almost returned to its usual, placid, lilting character. Only at the last did it quaver: "no regrets but one."

Inari gaped, spellbound, hovering between hope and fear.

"If I could go back, Inari, I'd tell Zabuza not to listen to Gato," Haku offered with cresting emotion. "I'd tell him not to take that stupid contract; that killing an old man, the only man in the Land of Waves brave enough to stand up for his people, was beneath him, that it was wrong. I'd --," Haku broke off, his voice cracking, lips trembling as he fought back tears of his own. "I'd just tell him just not to be so f-cking stupid!"

Inari stared at Haku wide-eyed, hardly believing this was the same person he'd been so afraid of -- someone with incredible, even terrifying abilities, but yet quirky and human too…like Naruto.

The boy froze, again at odds with the idea that people he'd thought were opposites could be so alike.

"Well, we're quite a pair, aren't we?" ventured Haku at last with a shaky smile. "One unable to tell his teacher the plain truth, the other unable to kill the man sent to kill his granddad."

The young ninja looked at the kid, away, then back again. "If I said, Inari," he ventured, "that I have no intention at all of hurting Tazuna, would it make a difference?"

Inari's expression wavered ambivalently, torn between wanting to believe and the consequences of being wrong. "Really?" he squeaked hesitantly. "Promise?"

"Yes…I promise," Haku agreed, nodding, then, seeing the conflict play over Inari's young face, added: "I solemnly swear by Heaven and Earth, and by the spirit of my sensei."

Though the invocation of the Demon of the Hidden Mist did nothing to comfort the boy, he had an inkling now of what it meant to Haku.

"And Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura too?" Inari tacked on quickly, suspiciously, as if bargaining with a djinni…or the devil himself.

Haku shot him a puzzled look. "Oh, right," he muttered and rubbed his forehead absently, "where else would leaf-ninja traveling on a budget sleep? They all stayed at your house, huh?"

The teenager laughed then, a light, mirthful sound that made the grandson wonder how anyone who could laugh like that earn a title like 'The Demon's Apprentice'. "An interesting bunch, those three, aren't they," said the fugitive to the boy, "especially Naruto. I have the strange feeling he must have made an impression on you."

Inari nodded, his expression squirming.

"Yeah," the ninja admitted with a distant voice, "on me too. Ok, I promise I won't kill any of them either."

"AND Kakashi-sensei?"

Haku frowned and raised an eyebrow, paused for a long time, leaned forward, then again closer. "He almost killed me, you know," the shinobi pointed out with a trace of pique in his cross voice. "His jutsu went right through inches of ice, two quivers full of senbon, and an armored plate." The young ninja settled back, crossed his arms and snorted. "He put a big hole in my chest…and it hurt."

Inari lowered his gaze firmly and his lips pouted, an expression stating plainly that this was non-negotiable no matter what Haku's objections might be. Yet at the same time the boy felt as though the ninja's reluctance was only pretend…that he was playing with him in a good-natured way like his grandfather himself sometimes did.

"Kakashi too!" the boy demanded adamantly.

"I'm just saying…," replied Haku as he opened his hands then sighed. "Ok," he relented, "the Copy-Ninja's off-limits too."

Flushed with victory, Inari's confidence returned. Drawing himself up, the kid grinned, raised his forefinger instructively and pressed his advantage: "And you promise never to kill anyone ever again!"

Haku looked at him blank-faced for a moment, then sat back and leaned on his outstretched arms. "Um," the ninja began in a delicate, serious voice, and Inari knew immediately from the tone that he wasn't playing anymore. "I'm afraid I can't make that promise, Inari, as much as I'd like to. I find myself in difficult times…and there are, well, a lot of people who wish to contend with me right now – a lot of people who wish to kill me," Haku lifted his grey eyes toward the boy's, "some are bad people like Zori and Waraji, who kill without honor or mercy. I know you wouldn't want me to make a promise that, in remaining true to it, would leave me defenseless against them."

The boy looked down dejectedly, but slowly agreed that Haku was right in part or at least that it didn't make any sense for the fugitive to promise such a thing. "And that grouchy, tiger-woman too, huh?" Inari muttered.

The ninja looked at him appreciatively, nodded, then gave him an understanding smile. "Yes, Inari," he said, "her too."

"But," asked the child, still bothered at this gap in their negotiations, "what about all those people you said you killed today? Did they have to die; were they all bad like Zori and Waraji?"

"Oh, them," Haku remarked. "That's a matter of opinion, I suppose. In their minds, they were going to do the job they were paid to do. In my mind, they were rogue ninja hired to destroy the Land of Waves."

"WHAT!?" squawked Inari, alarmed. "What for!?"

The ninja scratched his cheek then looked at the boy. "It's kind of a long story," Haku began. His expression turned thoughtful as he tried to summarize, "but it has something to do with all that 'adult' stuff you probably find really boring, you know -- politics, policy, greed, control and, oddly-enough," Zabuza's student glanced at the boy, already suspecting what his reaction would be, "gardening."

Inari looked at him askance and grimaced. "And…they were really going to destroy the whole town, the houses, the bridge…everything?"

"Yes, Inari," said the ninja reluctantly, as if hating to be the one to break the news. "They were."

The boy's young brow knitted. "Is that why that big, mean, tiger-girl's so mad at you…because you stopped them?"

"In part."

Inari hung his head, his thoughts churning. _Could it be true?_ he wondered. The idea that anyone would want to destroy his poor little village seemed so ridiculous. _But Juri really was mad at Haku about something. And anyway, why would he lie?_

The boy bit his lip. "I guess…I should thank you for saving me from Zori and Waraji," he offered tentatively. "They killed Kaiza…they killed my father."

The ninja's eyes flickered. "I'm sorry," he consoled. "I didn't know."

"They would've killed me too if you didn't beat 'em up," the boy recalled. "You saved my life, twice now, and I…I lead those ANBU guys to you."

Haku tossed his head, sat up then moved closer. "I know why now, you were worried about your grandfather. I can hardly blame you for that."

Inari winced guiltily.

"They were after me anyway," said Haku. "And it's not as if they wouldn't have found me eventually."

"Those ANBU guys," mumbled the black-haired boy, pleading on their behalf, "they're ok, you know? You're," his voice fell to a whisper, "you're not going to kill them are you?"

The ninja looked away, bringing a hand to his chin, as he stared off into the darkness. "I may have to, Inari," said Haku with blunt regret. "I don't see any other way. They are charged to kill me, and I wish to live. We can't both have what we want."

Inari's face wracked with conflicting emotions.

"Don't worry about us, Inari. We're all shinobi. We know the risks," the ninja offered in a matter-of-fact tone. But when the black-haired child trembled and shook his head, Haku added more brightly: "And don't be sad either; I'm not."

Inari looked at him, puzzled.

"What they, and me, have to face we've brought upon ourselves. A lot of people want to kill me, Inari," said Haku, "but as long as you aren't one of them, I'll feel a whole lot better…whatever may come. What do you say?"

Haku grinned and held up his fist. Inari wiped his nose, smiled back uncertainly but touched his knuckles to his.

The young ninja laughed, genuinely relieved, and pushed himself to his feet. "I'm a bit behind schedule now, but I can't complain."

"B-behind schedule?" Inari wondered aloud, his ebon eyes widening curiously. "Why…why'd you stay?"

"I know this might not make much sense to you," Haku began as he shook leaves from the back of his pant legs, "but I've reached a point where I can't move on with what I wish to do with my life until I've reconciled my past…and you are a part of that, although perhaps more than I'd realized."

The boy blinked, only half-getting it. "Are you going to be ok?"

The fugitive struck a dramatic pose as he canted his gaze toward the heavens. "I know nothing with any certainty," Haku intoned in a ghostly voice, "but the sight of the stars makes me dream."

Inari's gave the teenager a skeptical look.

"Sorry," the young ninja confessed, laughed lightly and gestured with his fingers, "a famous painter said that once and I always thought it sounded 'cool'."

Haku gathered himself to rush off again into the night, but stopped. "Oh, Inari," he asked worriedly, "you can find your own way home, can't you?"

Inari stared, amazed that this strange boy -- so dangerous but, in his own way, so vulnerable, and the focus of so many peoples' attentions, would delay himself to ask something like that.

Despite that this guy was Zabuza's apprentice, a rogue ninja from the Land of Water, a notorious criminal wanted for attempting to kill the Mizukage, and the follower of a master who'd been hired to kill his grandfather, despite everything the scales in Inari's mind tilted under the ethereal influence of this one detail. In that one moment the boy decided that Haku would keep his promises…and that he could be trusted.

"You bet!" Inari chimed as he reached back to rub the back of his head. "I grew up here. I know this place like the back of my hand. Don't worry about me!"

The ninja grinned, nodded confidently, turned then vanished in a blur of motion.

Only then, when Inari was alone, did he look around into the dark woods and realize he was totally and hopelessly lost.

"Um, Haku?" the boy ventured tentatively, swallowed hard then tried again: "Are you still there? Haku?!"

* * *

_Hi, everybody. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. What do you think? I was a little worried about this one, with all the breaks in continuity through Juri's chapter and the last part with Inari and Haku. Basically, I got to the point where I can't stand to work the chapter anymore and want to move on to the next. But any feedback you have is deeply appreciated._

_Thanks, and take care ;D,_

_--Jonohex_


	15. Chapter 15

_Hi, everybody! Happy Chrismahanukwanzika ;) I have my doubts that anyone's going to read fanfiction between X-mas and New Years', but I just couldn't hold off anymore so here's Ch. 15._

_Hope you like it ,_

_--Jonohex

* * *

_

**Haku**

Alone in the night, Haku walked the forest-bounded trail with only his solemn thoughts and the crickets' murmuring chorus for company. Reaching the top of the hill at last, the young ninja swallowed.

_I should have come…long before now, _he pondered guiltily in a long moment of tormented self-reproval.

The cold fact that visiting this place of all places while the ANBU were unaccounted for would have been wildly insensible offered him no consolation. Rather the teenager remembered with vivid clarity having called another 'ungrateful' this night, and couldn't help but feel that he himself resembled that description much more than the one he'd accused.

_Inari, _Haku welcomed the diverting thought then grinned as he recalled the stubborn, single-minded boy's impressive intractability. He'd never wavered once, despite being so severely outmatched. Naruto Uzumaki had certainly left his mark on this one!

Strangely enough, even with Haku's various and seemingly-unending troubles, having settled things with the bridge-builder's grandson had lifted the ninja's spirits much more than he would have thought and enabled him to proceed with the remainder of his loose agenda with a much more hopeful outlook than he would have had otherwise.

Pressing on then, with the trees towering over him -- stark, black shapes against a backdrop of infinite night, Haku came at last to the clearing…and the final resting place of his master, Zabuza Momochi, The Demon of the Hidden Mist. But instead of the peaceful gravesite Mari had described, what lay there revealed by cloud-veiled moonlight were two unearthed, broke-open caskets.

Haku gasped, rushed forward and stared down in shock at the desecrated graves, scowling, fists clenched, and breath hissing. In a glance, he noticed the body was gone (that his own body was missing was, of course, no mystery) and that these coffins had not been dug up from above, but pushed up from below.

_A jutsu…_he began to figure out and all of a sudden it made sense. The ANBU had come here first to claim Zabuza's body (and his) to protect the secrets it contained and verify that he was dead.

A gnawing, hollow feeling gripped the lone shinobi. Haku fell to his knees and let his face fall into his hands.

"All I wanted," he whispered in a woeful, tremulous voice, "was to say goodbye. Couldn't you at least let me have that?"

Recovering himself, Haku came to his feet then trudged bitterly to where the hill dropped off toward the village. The ninja brushed his black hair back with his hands and looked down at the gentle tapestry of lights along the streets, the houses and buildings, the Great Naruto Bridge and all the construction around it – the fresh concrete pads, half-built buildings and towering cranes.

The sight of it all slowly calmed the fugitive and he nodded surely.

Some things in life you could do nothing about and had no choice but to accept, while other matters had solutions. Though unexpected and inconvenient, he quickly arrived at the notion that this situation fell towards the latter. That the ANBU had defiled Master Zabuza's body was an abomination, a transgression without equal. This had to be addressed at once, even at the expense of all else.

Haku rushed back to go the way he'd came, then noticed something that brought him to a halt. Zabuza's sword was still there, sticking up from the ground to mark the spot where his body had lay – an almost cross-shaped tombstone. Neither the ANBU nor thieves had taken that, at least.

The young ninja stared at the artifact and felt a pang from its familiarity. It didn't seem right somehow, separated from its master. Reaching out to the weapon slowly, with the reverent hesitation of one approaching a holy artifact, Haku's fingers brushed along the flat of the wide blade and up along the hilt before they wrapped slowly around the long handle.

Closing his eyes, Zabuza's disciple could almost feel his lost sensei's residual energy flowing within the sword he'd wielded for so long.

Haku suppressed a smile.

Zabuza had been so proud of this weapon. It embodied all the ideas of physical and spiritual power he wished to express, compressing them into a single, simple and easily-comprehendible symbol. But beyond what the thing represented, and yes, Haku had to admit, from a semiotic and psychoanalytic perspective Zabuza's sword was obvious to the point of vulgarity, there was an indisputable practical component – it cleared out the riff-raff.

If all you had was a kunai knife, no one would be much impressed no matter how strong you were; but if you showed up whipping around an eight-foot-long plane of razor-sharp steel, people definitely got the message to _get_ and _stay_ the hell out of your way! Anyone who still felt like they wanted a piece of you basically deserved what they got, and got what they deserved.

The line of thought made Haku reconsider his own choice of armament. He'd always liked the versatility, range and precision of senbon, but they certainly didn't make that strong a statement or inspire the kind of instinctive fear that Zabuza's zanbato did. And as far as embodying masculine potency, well --.

Haku's lips lifted into a pained grin then he gave the sword a tug, but it refused to budge.

_Oh, of course,_ the ninja remembered and felt a little thick-headed. This thing was a long length of solid steel: well over a foot wide and about a half-an-inch thick at the back of the blade; the sucker weighed well over a hundred pounds and was stuck deep into the ground.

Firing his chakra, Haku adjusted his grip then dramatically, like the sword Excalibur, drew the weapon from the earth and held it high over his head. Over the bared blade, the moonlight glinted – a ribbon of pale white that passed from the base of the sword all the way up to where it curved to a wicked point.

The young shinobi paused, holding the posture, but almost felt like a little kid playing with something he wasn't supposed to. Those feelings aside, his sensei's zanbato felt better in his hand than he'd thought it would.

Gradually, Haku lowered the weapon to his side, letting the point dip close to the ground, then flexed his wrist and brought the back of the blade up to rest against the front of his shoulder.

Drawing a deep breath, Haku skipped in place and saluted crisply with his left palm. Although he'd never trained with this weapon, he'd watched Zabuza over eight years and had committed his techniques to memory. His master's basic set of exercises were grouped into a form called, explicitly enough, 'The Martial King's Giant Sword'.

"The Martial King Salutes the East and West," he intoned quietly, and the sword hissed through the air as Haku whirled that massive blade to his left, around his head, then slashed right. Leaves whirled in the twisting vortices created by the weapon's wake.

"The Dragon's Tail Sweeps Aside Cavalry," Haku went on through that section of the form, spun out to his right, slashing upward-arcing figure-eights, then ended in a blocking position with the zanbato over his head, level with the ground.

At this point he was overcome with the essential silliness of what he was doing and decided to stop. The young shinobi's chakra was sufficiently strong so that he could wield the weapon but he wasn't nearly tall enough to wield it well, and so the movements were awkward and poorly angled.

Haku swung Zabuza's zanbato again, let it drift up, then laid it back over his shoulder. Though he couldn't help but feel a certain sentimental attachment to it, he knew this weapon was not really his and never could be.

Haku paced back to the spot, returned the sword to its home and gave it an affectionate, farewell pat.

Standing there, he paused reflectively.

_I guess senbon will have to do,_ the ninja decided at last, straightened his clothing then marched away.

* * *

A tired and frustrated Haku grumbled sullenly and sourly as he checked all the corners and peered under the beds of the semi-squalid, dimly-lit room. 

The teenager couldn't quite decide what he detested more: the fact that he was engaged in the act of breaking and entering like some common thief, or the smells that lingered in the air – an earthy 'locker-room' aroma spiked with the hospital stink of antiseptics, gauze and blood.

Whether by accident or design, the bathroom light had been left on and it's brutal, buzzing, cool-white florescent carved an ugly rectangular frame of light around the partially-opened stile-and-rail door which revealed: a small table piled with junk food wrappers and take-out cartons, beer bottles, maps and weapons; two end-tables; a dresser; a pair of wardrobes; a wood floor littered with dirty clothes; beige walls hung with cheesy landscapes and still-lifes; two twin-sized beds, both unmade; and a cot occupied by a single, snoring and wounded occupant.

Rolling his eyes as he completed his fruitless search of the first wardrobe, having found nothing there but commando-style ninja uniforms and armored jackets, Haku gently shut the door and moved on to the dressers.

The young fugitive set his fingers on the pull, thought better of it, then gave the drawer a quick once-over for trip-wires and paper bombs. He knew it wasn't likely that the ANBU would lay a trap like that in their own room while they were living in it, but was not going to take it for granted given the possible consequences…like getting blown up or poisoned or something like that.

_And that'd be a hell of a way to die,_ he carped, _caught in the act…_

_Stupid ANBU,_ Haku fumed silently and continued to hope that Juri could keep the rest of them occupied for a while longer.

The girl certainly seemed up to the task, as he remembered. And if he was really lucky, they'd all kill each other. Then that way --.

Haku stopped himself. He knew better than to believe in luck like that – a grand and miraculous turn of fate that sweeps aside all problems as if by magic. Yes, such things have been known to happen sometimes to some people, but very, very rarely. Besides, he was not feeling especially lucky and had no reason to believe that fate would be kind to him.

_That's not quite true, now is it?_ Haku reminded himself then frowned. _You're alive, after all, when you know you probably shouldn't be. When you were an abandoned orphan all those years ago, starving and freezing to death, Master Zabuza appeared from nowhere, like a dark angel, to save you and give your miserable life purpose._

_And then, in similar fashion, Lord Hirai offered you a magnificent solution to all the troubles you face now…you chose not to accept it._

_'Seems to me you have little right to complain. Fate's been kinder to you than a lot of people; it's just that…to get the life you want, you're going to have to fight for it._

Putting aside his thoughts and making sure there were no surprises here, Haku carefully slid open the first dresser drawer then grimaced.

_Congratulations,_ he realized sardonically, _you found the dirty underwear drawer._ The ninja groaned quietly in disgust as he turned away then started to push the drawer closed.

The teenager's eyes widened with a fearful idea and he pulled it open again. His thoughts raced for a moment, then the ninja pulled out a senbon and picked and poked through the redolent contents, holding his breath the entire time. Haku sank with relief when he found nothing.

The sleeper's throaty snoring broke for a moment just then with a brief, soft series of coughs, at which the ninja held still and listened closely. At last, satisfied that all was well, Haku returned to work.

One by one in the dark room, Zabuza's disciple inspected the contents of every drawer in order, then moved on to the second wardrobe. Checking it over first, Haku pried open its door and at last found what he was looking for lying in plain sight right there on the bottom compartment – a single, thermos-sized metal canister.

A chill passed through him as he was struck by its significance; hot prickles gathered around his hairline and temples. The shinobi suppressed a sigh as he gave the artifact an anguished look, reached out for it…then froze, his fingers hanging mid-way.

The sleeper's snoring had changed pitch.

The difference was quite subtle, barely at the threshold of perception; and if it was a normal person Haku wouldn't have given it a thought. As it was, though…

Haku remained still, motionless for a few, long, tense seconds, then grinned in pained, begrudging acceptance.

"Hello, Eiji," he said without turning, breaking the room's dreadful silence. "It's me, Haku."

The fugitive paused in thought, wondering how the mist-ninja would react to this and what might be going through his mind. Still, Eiji Tohei was too dangerous to play with, even wounded, and so Haku tuned all his keen senses toward the figure in the cot.

"I'm not here to hurt you," Zabuza's student went on, "and I apologize for this…trespass, but it _remains_ --," the fugitive winced at his unfortunate word selection then moved on, "that you have something I need. I'm going to take it now and go. But if you try and stop me, I WILL kill you; I won't even think twice."

Haku took hold of the canister, straightened then turned.

Eiji looked up at him from where he laid, eyes fully open and gleaming reflected light. Though the ANBU's impassive features were hard to make out, Haku noticed the pallor of his face and all the bandages and wrappings on the exposed parts of his body.

He remembered that his Ten-thousand Needles of Death jutsu had come very close to killing the belligerent mist-ninja, and Juri had almost finished the job. But this was hardly the time or place for regrets and besides, had Eiji been victorious he would have jumped up and down with glee around Haku's bloody corpse.

Once Haku had assured himself as best he could that the ANBU _probably_ wasn't going to try anything stupid, the shinobi paced warily toward the door.

"Hey," Eiji rasped when the intruder got there. Haku paused with his hand on the knob. "I will kill you, Haku. I swear it." The wounded ninja's nostrils flared as he grimaced in pain, then spat hatefully, "f-cking, piece of sh-t, little faggot!"

The fugitive's eyes swiveled coolly toward Eiji. He wasn't angry, but dwelled now on the thought that maybe he should be. Wasn't he Zabuza's apprentice? Didn't such aspersions cast upon him reflect in some way on his late master?

How would Zabuza react to such crude invective? Haku asked himself. The man actually quite enjoyed trading insults and wildly-hyperbolic 'trash-talk' on occasion, but that was almost always with rivals or allies of a certain level. Even so, open disrespect was pretty much intolerable.

Haku pictured in his mind The Demon of the Hidden Mist replying 'What!' in his singularly leonine growl, grabbing then crushing Eiji's head with one hand like an over-ripe plum, with all the juices and pulp squishing out between his monstrously-strong fingers. Haku then imagined Zabuza's lieutenants, The Demon Brothers, those two dark, humorless souls – one wiring the foul-mouthed ninja to the bed with a monofilament while the other fetched kerosene.

Although both ideas seemed to have merits, Haku found that this was something he just, really, couldn't get mad about. And with so much left to do, he felt disinclined to try.

The fugitive ninja grinned lightly in the shabby, rented room. "Pray for us both then, Eiji Tohei," he advised, "for you to recover…and for me to live long enough."

Haku closed the door behind him, heard the soft click of the latch, then expressed a sigh as he walked along the second-floor balcony's creaky floorboards. Moths danced around flickering sconces mounted to the weathered board-and-batten walls. The nearby sounds of chattering voices, singing and laughing, sought him, mocking his conflicted emotions and beckoning just the same.

Forgetting himself, the fugitive paused for a moment to lean on the wooden railing and stare down into the overgrown back-yard that The Junk's boarding rooms overlooked. The air had turned cool and a fog was starting to rise, blanketing the landscape with misty vapors.

Although it was ill-advised to waste time like this, the young ninja shut his eyes; his fingers cradled the metal canister he carried with fierce but tender care. But before he could fall too far into the ocean of his memories, thoughts, emotions and all the things he'd left unsaid in his life, Haku inhaled sharply and forced himself on – proceeding down the stairs and into The Junk's open-air patio.

"LAST CALL!" the barkeeper bellowed abruptly between cupped hands just as the ninja arrived, nearly startling him. A chorus of groans and vague, half-articulated threats went up. "Yeah, yeah," the good-humored, skeletally-boney man in a loud-patterned shirt answered with a grin, well-calloused to his patron's plights. "You all know the drill – last call for al-co-hol! You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here, and hey, like the song says: if you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with!"

Haku stopped and looked around dumbly as those customers with the fortitude to still be here, and relatively-lucid, at this late hour shouted out their orders.

Tucking his canister carefully into his tunic, Haku paced to the bar and took a stool. For awhile he sat with a patient, contemplative stare while the proprietor and his wait staff worked furiously, pouring pitchers, producing bottles, mixing and serving drinks.

When finished at last the barkeeper, having done his duty, puffed out a weary breath. Slowly the man noticed Haku, did a double-take, then leaned toward this questionable-looking stranger with an incredulous expression.

"So…what 'choo want?" he inquired doubtfully, narrowing pale, sea-foam eyes, "young, uh…master?"

Haku raised an eyebrow, a little peeved that the guy'd had to guess his gender even though it happened all the time, then informed him with a professional's dignified air: "Warm sake'."

"Whaaat?" answered the man with a braying laugh. "You're a little young for the sauce, don't cha think?"

The ninja smirked and shook his head. "Do you question all your customers like this?"

The proprietor lowered his brow. "I do when they're, like, twelve years old!" he declared lordly.

"Fifteen," Haku corrected him, and his large, grey eyes flickered expressively. "But it's dog years."

The way he said it made the smile fade from the barkeep's face.

"Anyway," the odd, youthful customer informed him, "all I really want's a taste."

The barkeeper looked at him afresh. "Ok," he considered, "why's that?"

Haku changed the mood with a grin, then explained, "Because I've never tried it before."

The man appraised him for a moment then, on impulse, brought up a ceramic flask from a warming tray, poured a small cup full of clear liquid and set both down on the counter.

The newcomer regarded the offering skeptically then took up the cup while the barkeeper took the flask in hand and they clinked the two together.

While the bartender took a big gulp the ninja took a small one, made an odd face then quickly set the cup back down.

The man laughed, not unkindly. "Satisfied?"

Haku's brow narrowed as he coughed lightly into his fist, then ventured, "and people actually drink this stuff?"

"Heh, yeah," the man admitted with a smile that was a prelude to volumes, "they sure do."

"I don't think I'll ever be one of your regulars."

The proprietor shrugged. "It don't hurt my feeling any," he offered graciously. "That just leaves more for the rest of us."

Haku returned his smug grin, then startled as he felt the presence of an ominous chakra -- a vast and unholy energy unlike any he'd felt before. Looking up, he saw the bartender's eyes widen as the man's expression went pale. The young ninja could hear behind him all the cheery voices fall quiet and a pair of ponderous footfalls approach.

Fighting hard to keep his composure but preparing for the fight of his life, Haku watched a shadow creep over him, across the bar, then over the bartender. The footsteps stopped right behind the ninja. Metal scraped against concrete as the fearful stranger pulled out the stool right beside Haku and sat.

Slowly, the young man swiveled his head and found himself staring into a metal plate engraved with the four-swimming-lines sigil of the Village Hidden in the Mist. The fugitive gulped hard as he processed that this plate was part of a headband, a hitai-ate, a typical enough part of any ninja's uniform, except that this headband was wrapped around a man's massive forearm…and it barely fit!

Haku's mouth hung open as he raised his head to take in the enormity of the stranger's dimensions, bulging arms, broad back and thick, bull neck. His complexion was ebony dark, his face pocked, and a thick, black mustache hung below a sharp, vulpine nose. The big mist-ninja set his veined, sinewy arm on the bar, an arm that ended in a huge, hairy and knob-knuckled hand, like a monster's from some fairy tale.

But far worse then his appearance was the man's energy – his chakra. Haku could feel it radiating malevolently just beneath the man's skin, as if the flesh was only a wrapping, a veneer paper-thin disguising something that ought not be seen by human eyes.

In his eight years as Zabuza Momochi's apprentice, Haku had encountered more than a few shinobi, shaman, monks, sages, spirits and monsters whose powers and natures transcended the mundane. Even the impish and expressive Naruto Uzumaki who, Haku had discovered too late, was a vessel for some dark and terrible power had been human.

What sat next to him now seemed worse by far than any of them – a true monster masquerading as a man, and not even taking the trouble to be convincing.

Sitting there, Haku quaked, his breath pulsing wildly before he finally got it under control.

As if privy to his thoughts the gargantuan stranger turned his massive head and looked down at Haku with the single searchlight eye he spared for the effort, then turned back when the barkeeper had worked up enough nerve to ask: "What," the man gulped in a high octave, "what do you want?"

With a single, horse-like snort, the giant mist-ninja produced a photograph – a distinctive likeness Haku recognized even upside down, that of the ANBU Pack Leader, Toru Yamashite.

Haku turned away, appalled.

Whoever, whatever this person was, to obtain his services Kirigakure had struck a dreadful bargain. That and this Toru guy was in big, big trouble!

"I…he, he's staying here," the barkeep confessed, crumbling under the unseen but palpable pressure, "him and his crew. B-b-but he's not here now. They're off doing some, um, you know, some ninja sh-t or something."

The mist-ninja folded his arms and sat back in brooding silence.

"Who…who are you, anyway?" the bearded man asked then shrank back when the giant's gaze fell directly upon him.

"_The Mizukage's emissary_," answered the man at length in a tyrannical-sounding voice that seemed to issue from the bottom of a chasm, "_Krishenay Rahaman_."

* * *

**Toru**

The ANBU Pack-Leader was still uncertain of the status of things – such was the fog of war. His heavy brow knitted as he stood protectively over Aya and Yukimasa who lay wounded, drifting in and out of consciousness, on blankets on the ground near the campfire's dancing light.

There was nothing that stung so much as the sight of his own wounded teammates; no more powerful a rebuke of his ability to lead than the bloody results of a failed strategy he could blame on no one but himself.

Toru sucked his dry lips worriedly. Over his career, he'd known many in senior positions who flat-out wouldn't care about such things. The Land of Water's complex hierarchy was riddled with ninja and daimyo who considered casualties as the tender one exchanged to advance their careers or zealots who honestly believed that loss of life was irrelevant as long as it was done in the name of pursuing their country's interests.

For the first time in a long time, Toru wished he was one of them.

The large ninja had used his Mist-Labyrinth jutsu to seal off their makeshift campsite, forming something of a protective dome, while Orimi reconnoitered. Only someone deeply familiar with the technique would be able to find a way through it.

Forgetting his wounds, the ANBU crouched down. His slashed, hastily-bandaged right leg quickly let him know he shouldn't have. Adjusting his posture then, Toru paced by his motionless teammates, unable to judge who was hurt worse.

Yukimasa, with his shredded, blood-drenched clothing, looked like he'd been mauled by some vicious animal. Toru frowned as he thought about it: where Juri was concerned, that comparison was not far from the truth.

The man's attention turned toward the kunoichi's slack expression. _Poor Aya_, he thought.

The young girl's hair and clothes were still wet, and her face pale from being half-drowned.

Toru looked up sharply then as he felt through his jutsu that Orimi had returned, and was not at all surprised when she suddenly emerged through his walls of mist – an elegant, deadly creature, he thought in a moment of curious sentimentality, a warrior-angel in grey battle-dress fatigues and white zodiac mask.

Out of all of them, the ANBU Captain considered, she was the most professional – a true ninja from a long and stately lineage.

The woman gave Toru a quick, perfunctory bow then took off her mask and mopped the sweat from her brow.

Toru could tell by the look on her face that the news wasn't especially good.

"And?" the big shinobi asked calmly, braced for the worst.

Orimi, with her left arm wrapped, and a big, white, square gauze bandage on her cheek, looked back at him with weary, carefully-stifled cynicism. She raised her arms then let them fall limply to her sides. "Where would you like me to start?"

"At the beginning," the Pack-Leader decided with a sigh, "the rogue ninja camp."

The kunoichi grinned tightly, reached into a case worn at her side then held out her hand and slowly opened it.

Toru watched the senbon roll one by one from the ends of her fingers and fall to the ground, colliding there with an almost musical tinkling.

The man's brow lifted over his thick, black-framed glasses. "So what are you saying -- that Haku killed off his own guys?" he ventured dubiously. "Senbon aren't exactly a weapon unique to The Demon's Apprentice."  
"That's true," Orimi's tone appeared to agree, though her expression did not.

Toru could tell something troubled her. "But?" he prodded, encouraging her to state her case.

The woman met his gaze with a certainty indicative of the veteran she was. "But the accuracy I saw out there at the ninja camp," she explained, "the spreads, the groupings…it's pure Haku."

Toru grunted tiredly. "Ok," he allowed, canting his head and not wanting to disagree at this moment, "so why would Haku do that? What does he get out of killing everybody?"

Orimi shrugged then half-joked: "Maybe somebody shoulda watched their mouth."

The Pack-Leader shook his head, paced away then stopped and gestured vaguely. "I'd buy that if it was Zabuza," Toru countered gently. "He was touchy like that, but Haku? 'Cool as a penguin's ass', Haku?"

The kunoichi gave him a nuanced look that read – you have a point, but you're still wrong and I'm too tired to argue.

Toru's features narrowed as he looked off into his own jutsu's vaporous walls. _If Haku really did massacre his own men,_ he thought, _there're only two reasons that make sense from what we know. One, his new master ordered it. That certainly stands to reason, at least in part. The kid was Zabuza's toady (and more than that if you believe the rumors) and now he's found someone else to fill that void._

The ANBU grumbled as he mulled over these suppositions. _But it's only been six weeks! There's no way Haku glommed on to someone else THAT fast…unless this 'someone else' found him. Anyway, why would his new boss make him kill his own ninja mercenaries?_

_Ok, the other reason – he's a flat-out psycho like Zabuza was. Ahh! That's too simple!_

"Alright," Toru deferred in frustration, then pushed up his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose, "let's move on. What about all the hired swords?"

Orimi winced then wandered over to look in on her two fallen teammates. "Buried alive, most of them," she reported with a casual air as she tenderly inspected their wounds. "The rest got whaled on by Tazuna's 'militia'. They think the whole thing went splendidly, by the way. There were only a few casualties on their end and they _saved their village!"_

Toru grinned at her theatrical emphasis then turned suddenly serious. "Tazuna," he rumbled anxiously as he remembered, "he must be goin' crazy." The ANBU looked toward Orimi and asked, "Any sign of Inari?"

The kunoichi shook her head. "I didn't find a body," she replied, trying to sound hopeful.

Toru rubbed his bristly cheeks between his hands. "Ok," he began anew, feeling his poor brain crumble before so many events that defied explanation, "so why would Haku kidnap Inari?"

"Hostage? Ransom? Human shield?" offered the woman half-heartedly.

"All possibilities, I suppose," Toru acknowledged. He hadn't really expected her to come up with the one answer that would light the darkness with a blazing beacon of truth, but sometimes a back-and-forth like this developed something valuable.

"They all seem pretty weak," he continued glumly. "There's clearly some dynamic going on here that we're missing."

"Clearly," Orimi agreed a little too readily. Toru resisted the urge to take it personally. After all, it was fairly evident. "There's no sign of Juri either."

"What a damn mess."

Kneeling over Aya, the elder kunoichi turned her head back toward Toru and asked in a testy voice: "Just what the hell happened, Chief?"

The jonin crossed his thick arms. A thousand vivid descriptions popped immediately into his head – snafu, clusterf-ck, hell in a hand basket. All were accurate yet lacked the kind of detail he knew Orimi expected.

"Well, as I see it," the Pack-Leader ventured, "things started off on track. The rogue ninja company got wiped out, presumably, let's say for the sake of argument, by Haku. Supposing we had an edge, I gave the order to attack. Aya took out the buildings and damn near all of the regular mercenaries. I guess Haku had already grabbed Inari; we won't know for sure until 'Masa comes to."

Orimi grunted sharply and smacked a fist into her palm. "I almost had him!" she barked suddenly – a painful acknowledgement and admission.

Toru raised a brow. _Oh, well that's part of it,_ he understood now and grinned. _She's pissed 'cause she missed the target._

"I almost had him," she continued sulkily; her chin falling into her chest, "but he just…slipped away…again."

The ANBU nodded.

Because Haku was NOT Zabuza it had been too easy to take him lightly, not understanding that though the young disciple lacked some of his master's strengths he possessed other virtues The Demon of the Hidden Mist lacked. Haku was patient and cool under pressure; those two attributes right there were more dangerous than any jutsu. On top of that were the largely-untapped powers of Haku's kekkei-genkai which, so far, Toru and his team had hardly pressured him enough to use.

The only way they'd ever kill Haku was by either engaging him from a seriously-slanted positional advantage or, as he was now sure the ninja team from Konoha had done, catch him or place him in a situation where he was conflicted or dispirited…when he wouldn't be able to focus.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," Toru advised supportively. "All those stories about the lone ninja who saves the day and takes down the bad guys; they're just stories. WE live in reality," he pointed out. "WE win or lose as a team."

The kunoichi conceded the point, but was far from accepting it in this case.

"I never thought I'd say this too," the bulky ninja went on, "but it's kind of a good thing Haku didn't stay and fight or I don't think any of us would've made it out alive. As strong as Juri was before, she kicked it into a higher gear. And she had help too."

"We still could've beat her."

"And we almost did," Toru granted. "The same strategy we came up with to take down Zabuza was working just fine on her – had her trapped in my 'Mist Labyrinth' and you, Aya and 'Masa were starting to pick her apart." He looked away and frowned. "Damn," the Pack-Leader grumbled as an aside, "we sure could've used Eiji."

Orimi shifted on her heels then sat down on the ground near the fire, pressed her hands together and rested her chin on the fingertips. "What happened then?" she asked. "I'm STILL not clear on that part…and I was there!"

Toru nodded, understanding her confusion. "It's called Water Monsters jutsu," he explained, "a variant of the Water Clone jutsu."

Orimi's expression turned ugly. "Juri?"

"No," the Pack-Leader clarified with a shake of his head. "She definitely had the chakra to pull it off, but that one takes a certain amount of slickness too. I assumed it was a lovely parting gift from whoever was really behind all this.

"Because Aya had brought up so much ground water to sink those buildings, there was a lot of it on hand for whoever it was to use. He used our own jutsu against us."

The two ninja turned as Yukimasa stirred feebly and groaned.

Orimi crept over to his side and knelt over him. "Toru!" she cried then waved him over.

The big ninja limped toward them, remembered he couldn't bend, and looked down instead. "What is it?"

The wounded 'Masa tried desperately to speak, but his jaw was still wired shut from his earlier battle with Haku. The man struggled for a moment before Orimi, quick on the uptake, reminded him that he had a notepad and pen.

Yukimasa ripped through his pockets until he found them, then scribbled furiously before shoving the note into his teammate's startled face.

Orimi took the scrap of paper in hand, brushed a stray lock of black hair from her face then read it aloud to her boss. "Haku says…he'll meet us at dawn," she said, hardly believing her own words, "says we'll know where."

Toru frowned thoughtfully. "Haku said that, huh?"

Yukimasa nodded vigorously then settled back down to rest.

"What does that mean, 'we'll know where'?" asked Orimi in a fiery tone. "I have no idea where!"

Toru rubbed his bristled chin. _This at least is something to go on,_ he thought. _Hmm. If it's just a trick, we're no worse off than we were before. But if Haku really does want to face us he wouldn't give us a riddle we couldn't solve._

"We'll have to work it out, I guess," the ANBU offered bluntly, but as he turned the words over, this cryptic message from his adversary, an idea gelled in his mind.

He did know where.

_Where AND when_, Toru reflected and the corners of his mouth upturned slightly. At this point, the idea of bringing this hunt to a satisfying conclusion flooded him with a heady euphoria.

"Orimi?" asked the Pack-Leader leader in a crisp voice that drew her attentive gaze at once, "can you get them stable enough to move, and then back to the room?"

The woman nodded. "Yes, Chief," she allowed curiously. "But where are you going?"

"We just got us an invitation," replied Toru who smiled grimly, "seems a shame not to accept."

* * *

**Mari**

Mari sat on the mattress in her dark room, huddled over her knees. For hours now she'd lingered in her nightclothes, her thoughts churning over and over, refusing to let her sleep.

"Haku," the girl said to herself and saw his face again and all his incarnations: from the wounded boy she'd rescued, practically dead, and stolen literally from the gravedigger's cart; to the frail, recovering patient; to the slightly delicate, but otherwise innocuous-looking laborer; to the feared, dangerous fugitive and revolutionary, the infamous shinobi they called The Demon's Apprentice.

Though he hadn't been in her life for very long, Mari realized, she couldn't imagine it without him. It hurt, more than anything she'd ever experienced, to realize that she might not have a choice.

_Chuuya – stupid little brother!_ Mari thought's flipped, still with a coal of anger. The kid STILL hadn't shown up, brought back home by weariness, hunger and loneliness, like so many people said he would.

Though the memory of his odd, familiar face and still odder mannerisms did nothing to idealize the little freak, Mari had come to realize how much she missed him – how strangely precious she thought her little brother, faced now with his absence.

Distantly, through her tired senses, a sound penetrated though the intensity of her preoccupation and the girl looked up to see a hand tapping against her half of the window. Mari stared curiously as, after a hesitant pause, the hand opened then pressed itself flat, with fingers spread like a pale starfish against the black pane; from it radiated white, fractal and lace-like arabesques of frost.

The girl gasped excitedly, shot to her feet, tore the door to her room open and raced down the hallway.

In the kitchen, Jimon, already up and eating breakfast before work, looked up at her in shock with a spoon still sticking out of his mouth. "Wht th 'ell?" he muttered as she raced past him, through the front room, and out the door into the dark, misty hours of the morning.

Haku awaited her, looking none the worse from his fight with the ANBU. The slender ninja shrugged and smiled plaintively. "Hi, Mari."

"Haku!" cried Mari as she brushed aside the inadequacy of his greeting, ran towards the ninja then threw her arms around him.

The girl buried herself into the reassuring comfort of his returned embrace; the warmth of his cheek against hers.

They held each other for so long it seemed as if they would never part, but then Haku's arms relaxed and he straightened stiffly. Taking the cue, Mari released him too, working up a head of steam to demand to know what had happened, where he'd been, what he'd been doing, about his new clothes and so on and on, but turned to see Jimon who stood on the porch, giving the ninja a foul glare.

"Haku, huh?" her brother began sourly, "The Demon's Apprentice. I guess those leaf-ninja really didn't kill you on the bridge."

"Well aren't you the smart one," the rogue ninja retorted, unabashed. "What gave me away? Was it my fight with the ANBU in the middle of the street?"

"Duh," the eldest of the Tezuka sons affirmed, "I was there." Jimon folded his arms and sat down on the porch steps.

Haku moved to join him there, the two eyeing each other with undisguised scorn. Mari sped up to position herself between the two. There always had been some tension between Haku and her older brother, but right now it seemed to have a much keener and uglier edge.

"I can't say I've ever met a real-live wanted criminal before," announced Jimon with a slighting tone.

Haku nodded civilly. "Impressed?"

"Not really."

Mari swallowed nervously then rolled her eyes. She didn't want it to be like this, but was at a complete loss as to what to say or do about it.

Her brother sniffed crisply then delivered to Haku in a firm voice, "You can't stay here anymore."

"Hey!" objected Mari at once. "That's not your call, Jimon. You can't just," she scowled and shook her head, "DECIDE something like that."

"I think I just did."

From where he sat, Haku held up his hand dismissively. "There's no need to argue about this. Jimon is right."

Mari fell silent, then gave the ninja an anguished look. "But," she began, "you just got back."

"I know," Haku replied glumly. "If it was up to me, I'd stay; I'd try to start over, but I can't. I was with Zabuza Momochi for eight years of my life and I did…a great many things Kirigakure wishes to avenge. I can't bring you into that anymore than I have already."

"That's the first smart thing you've said," blurted Jimon sarcastically. "So tell me," he went on in a brash, cruel tone, which gave Mari a really bad feeling, "is it true what they say about you and Zabuza; that you were his…_concubine?_"

"Jimon!" Mari gasped and swung the point of her elbow hard into her offensive sibling's solid shoulder.

"Oh, it wasn't just me," answered Haku in a cool, worldly voice, drawing both their attentions, "Zabuza had a whole army of young nymphomaniacs to please him…boys AND girls."

Mari's mouth fell open, aghast.

Jimon turned to Haku, eyes wide, scowling with disgust. "You're freakin' kiddin' me."

"Yes," the ninja allowed with a nod. "I am."

Mari choked, then put her hand over her mouth to cover her laughter.

"But hey," Haku continued in droll nonchalance. "Far be it for ME to ruin your fantasies."

"Aright, aright," growled Jimon, who threw up a hand. "You made your little point, fine. But ok, tough guy, what about all that stuff about you being a cross-dresser, huh?"

Mari shifted uncertainly as Haku's face fell.

"That one's true," the black-haired teenager stated in a quiet, belabored voice.

"What, really?" said Mari with suppressed incredulity, then added after a moment of intense thought: "Why?"

Haku's head swayed back and forth before he turned and looked back at her. "I don't know…I always _felt_ better in them," the ninja explained nervously, "always _looked_ better in them. I always liked how people treated me when they thought I was a girl." The fugitive frowned, turned away and rested his arms on his knees. "They were more polite, more gentle, spoke softer. People always reacted so much better towards me when they thought I was a nice-looking girl rather than some," his voice trailed off, "strange-looking boy."

The three sat for a moment in tense silence: Mari pensive; Jimon smug as he folded his arms; and Haku who looked off, face fixed in thought.

"Listen, Mari," blurted Haku with an intensity that surprised her, "the real truth is, I don't know. I never thought about it that much, and no one's ever asked me until now. And I can try to come up with some reasonable-sounding explanation, but I don't know the reason WHY I do most of the things I do. What good is an explanation anyway?"

Jimon scoffed.

"Do _you_ Jimon?" the ninja demanded accusingly. "Do you pick apart the rationale for everything YOU do? You don't exactly strike me as the introspective type, so forgive me if I've misjudged you."

The older teen leveled a disparaging, dark-eyed glare at him. "'Sounds like a bunch of crap to me!"  
Haku tossed his head and chuckled lightly. "I was the sole disciple of Zabuza Momochi, The Demon of the Hidden Mist, one of the Seven Legendary Swordsmen," the ninja ventured as he looked skyward. "He was my sensei and he gave me the greatest gift that anyone can give." He paused deliberately then looked at Mari and Jimon, "He gave me his time."

Drawing a deep breath, Haku continued: "He was just twenty-six when he died, not very old, and he gave ME eight years of that. It's an honor that he CHOSE to give a gift like that, a treasure without equal, to me. Zabuza was a great man, whether you appreciate his attributes or not. He was precious to me, and in the end I think I was precious to him too and had earned his respect.

"So Jimon," declared the fugitive shinobi with a vaguely imperious look toward the older boy, "somehow, I just can't bring myself to give a damn what YOU think about me."

Haku's expression softened then as he looked into Mari's face. "But you, Mari," he implored softly, "I do care what you think…and hope you're not disappointed with me."

The girl stared at him, taken-aback. "It seems a little weird," she answered in earnest, then continued in a softer tone, "But, I guess, I can't 'bring myself' to care about that too much." Mari rocked against him playfully. "For what it's worth," she opined, "I like you in BOY'S clothes."

Haku chuckled softly, smiling and relieved. "Thanks."

"Whatever," muttered Jimon caustically as he rose to his feet. "Come on inside, Mari."

Mari shot him an intense look. "I'm not eight anymore; I'll come in when I want."

"Mari!" Jimon rumbled insistently.

The girl felt Haku's sleeve brush her's as the ninja rose abruptly and turned toward where Jimon stood. "I think she said she'll come in when she wants to," he uttered in flat defiance. The underlying threat in his voice was crystal clear.

Worried now and surprised, Mari pulled gently on Haku's arm. The young fugitive resisted for a moment then obligingly sat back down next to her.

Jimon was used to having his way most of the time based on the facts that he was, if not bigger and stronger, usually more tenacious than whoever it was he had issues with. And it sure looked, based only on appearances, like her brother would beat the hell out of Haku if it came to a fight. Jimon was much bigger, his physique chiseled and ropey. Haku was slight, delicate and undeniably feminine. But after having seen the ninja in action a couple of times now, there was no doubt in Mari's mind how a collision between the two would end – badly for Jimon…very, VERY badly.

Mari tightened her grip on Haku's arm and prayed that neither would pursue this. Jimon could really be a giant, thoughtless a—hole sometimes, and this was one of those times. And Haku was different too, she felt, much more on edge than he'd been before, anxious, almost driven. Could she really count on him to show restraint?

"He can't stay here anymore," Jimon reiterated firmly, then added before he stalked back inside, "he's dangerous."

Mari melted with relief, then wet her lips. "Don't listen to him, Haku," she countermanded fiercely. "You can stay if you want. It's not his decision anyway." The girl looked at her visitor, then away.

Both fell silent for a moment, and Mari clasped her hands nervously at her waist. "I thought I was going to lose my mind, with you gone and Chuuya --," she broke off suddenly as she realized Haku probably didn't know. "Chuuya's run away or something. No one's seen him."

"What?!" Haku started with disbelief then groaned. "I'm sure he's all right," the ninja posited once he'd had a chance to collect his thoughts.

"But where could the little freak go?"

"I wish I knew," the ninja said, "but he's resilient and smart, er, smarter than he's credited for…and I'm sure he'll be back once he's finished doing whatever it is he felt he needed to."

Mari looked at his profile in the dim, mist-veiled porch light. She'd heard similar-sounding words before but, coming from him, they made her feel better. "I'm glad you're ok," said the girl in a heartfelt voice as he she leaned her head against his sloped shoulder. "I was really worried, and I'm glad you're back."

Haku put his arm around her and tilted his head to rest upon hers. "Jimon's right though," he allowed at last. "It _is_ too dangerous."

Mari sat up. "You…you're really not staying?"

"I wish I could," said Haku in a regretful voice, then he slowly pushed himself to his feet. "I want to…so much, but I have appointments to keep and they won't wait."

"Appointments? What are you --?" Mari stopped herself, knowing that knowing the details wouldn't help. She sensed that their time was short; and those weren't the answers she wanted to know anyway. "And after that?" the girl asked instead as she rose.

Haku smiled, then looked into her eyes reassuringly as he gently touched her cheek. "I'll come back," he said – a softly-spoken promise. "I mean, how else can I see you again?"

The girl felt Haku's fingers drift along her neck and she found herself drawn toward him, by magnetism, by gravity, by forces of nature just as irresistible; and their lips met in a kiss.

Her whole world vanished then, becoming only him – the familiar scent of his hair, the comfort of his strength, the warmth of his touch. But it was much more then that, a sorcery worked by the senses, this was an expression of what could not be put into words; a gift of love shared only with each other.

When they parted Haku smiled tenderly then spoke, answering the question in her eyes. "Because I've wanted to…for a long while now."

The ninja's grey eyes flickered as he seemed to want to say more.

Mari reached out to him but he was already turning and pacing away, fading into the misty darkness of the pre-dawn hours.

The girl stood there alone, bewildered and conflicted.

Her first kiss! The first one that ever meant anything…and it had been everything she'd expected. Yet the moment was stained too because Haku, the boy she loved, had lied to her for the first time – not deception through fabrication, but through omission.

The scene replayed in Mari's mind as Haku answered her unvoiced question: _'Because I've wanted to…for a long while now,'_ he'd said, and that much was true she was sure. But what he'd let pass unsaid had been clear enough in his eyes, '_and because I…I might not get the chance.'_

Mari swallowed hard as her eyes began to fill with tears.

Was it really possible to 'know' someone beyond what you learn about them over time? Mari had never believed that, but now, somehow, felt certain that she knew where Haku had gone. The girl could picture it clearly in her mind, like a revelation.

In an instant, the decision was made. Thoughts that once swirled now joined together in resolution, galvanizing, commanding nerves to fire and muscles to move.

Barefooted and dressed only in her nightclothes, Mari headed after Haku, growing ever more certain with each passing step as she followed him into the darkness and mist.

_Fourteen years!_ She thought furiously. _Fourteen years I've waited to feel this way about someone; for someone to feel this way about me. There's no WAY I'm going to let him go without a fight!

* * *

Thanks for reading. Please drop a review if you are so inclined ;D _

Take care, --Jono'


	16. Chapter 16

_Hi, it's me again. And I've managed to keep this one a relatively short, but hopefully action-packed chapter ;). Hope you like it!_

_--Jono'_**_

* * *

_**

**Haku**

The bridge _gathers _to itself

in _its own _way

earth and sky,

divinities and mortals.

-Martin Heidegger

The village was shrouded with fog, and so dark and quiet that it was impossible to grasp it as the dwelling place of any living soul. Whorls of thick mist drifted in the early hours, stirred by unfelt winds, creating ghostly shapes that teased the mind with the familiar and the unfamiliar, the expected and the strange.

Through this haunted landscape walked the fugitive Haku, slowly but with purpose, toward the forbidding precincts of the Great Naruto Bridge. This Land of Waves -- its mist-veiled houses, haloed street lamps, and forlorn roads seemed to coalesce into existence from the swirling chaos that held dominion beyond the fog's impenetrable shores as the young ninja approached, then dispersed again into the aether when he passed, as if reality itself was tethered to his footsteps.

Then…there it was – the bridge, at last. His destination loomed from the vapors like a mountain-top through the clouds; the frame of its brick and concrete portal illuminated by glowing lamplight.

Taking a deep breath of the thick, moist atmosphere, Haku went forward as if into another world, hugging tightly against his chest the metal canister that contained the mortal remains of his slain master, Zabuza Momochi.

_What is it about bridges?_ ruminated Haku; his soft footsteps tapping hollowly in the eerie calm. _You aren't one place or another, but somewhere in-between._

_It was on a bridge in Water Country where Zabuza found me, all those years ago – a little boy, alone and freezing; on that bridge where I began my life anew, where I became his disciple._

_It was on THIS bridge in the Land of Waves where he died, maybe where I was supposed to die too…beside him._

_That would have been…very poetic, I suppose._

The ninja frowned, one eye pinching shut, then wiped the sleeve of his deep blue tunic across his dew-dampened brow. _I don't understand why,_ Haku continued,_ and maybe it's just coincidence, but for whatever reason bridges seem to be the places where life changes for me._

_Maybe this time…just one more time…_

Haku's breath left him as he felt the weight of what was at stake, of what the next hour or so would bring. It was quite likely he would not survive, the teenager knew, having removed by his own choice the option to retreat.

Somewhere out there was a woman whose only living desire was to _kill_ him, and a man who had in mind for Haku's most immediate future a metal canister very like the one the ninja carried now.

_Mari would be quite sad._ The young fugitive sighed as the thought tore at him. _And little Chuuya too,_ Haku added then continued, _Jimon…eh, maybe not so much._

Haku's lips quivered.

_You know,_ he diverted himself hurriedly, thoughts babbling, _technically, this 'bridge' is really more of a 'causeway'. I guess somebody must have thought 'The Great Naruto Causeway' didn't have the same ring._

Just _thinking_ that name again brought him around.

_Naruto…_Haku repeated with a sudden spike of urgency. Not seeing _him_ again would be something else he'd regret.

Pacing to the edge of the bridge, he couldn't tell exactly how far from shore he'd gone because of the fog, Zabuza's apprentice set the canister down on top of the guard-wall and drew a deep, meditative breath.

The sound of the waves down below, a soft, low murmur, lulled the young man as he tried to still his anxious mind. Closing his eyes, Haku turned his attention toward the memories of his beloved, departed master.

A long while passed before the shinobi nodded quietly, then offered his prayers.

"Goodbye, Master Zabuza," he said simply and tenderly when he was finished. "I will never forget you."

Slowly, solemnly, Haku opened the canister and held it out over the guard-wall. The waters below lay unseen beneath thick blankets of swirling grey, as if the bridge on which he stood hovered high above the clouds, divorced from land, and a world wholly unto itself. After a pause, the young ninja turned the vessel over with great care and poured out a thin, steady stream of the whitish-grey powder that had been his master's body. Down into the mists it flowed then was gone.

Once the canister was empty, Haku waited for a moment before consigning the vessel itself to the sea. Releasing his fingers, the empty canister tumbled through space before it too vanished into the unknown.

The ninja let out a mournful breath then rested his arms and forehead against the guard-walls concrete cap.

_It's done,_ he thought cheerlessly. _It's over._

After all Zabuza Momochi had achieved and all he'd fought and trained so hard to become, all his great dreams and the tempestuous conflagration his life had been…this humble ceremony was his final farewell.

_That man deserved better,_ Haku considered then continued resentfully, _but at least this is better then what the ANBU gave him._

Moments passed like hours.

_Nothing to do now but wait,_ thought the ninja, who rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek, _for the sun, and what may come with it._

But Haku hadn't waited very long when he gradually became aware of footsteps – the sound of someone approaching unseen through the mists, but this was someone who cared not at all if the ninja heard.

For a fleeting moment the lone shinobi entertained the idea that it could be some random passer-by, some pedestrian merely with nothing at all to do with the absurdly overwrought melodrama his life had become; but the meter of those footfalls, firm and resolute in these morning hours, put the notion immediately to flight.

_Damn it!_ Haku snarled angrily, teeth flashing white. _It's not dawn yet. Someone's here early!_

The teenager stormed from the guard-wall out to the middle of the bridge to prepare himself for whoever it was. Tensely, Haku rolled his shoulders, flexed his fingers, loosened his tunic to ease access to his abundant quivers of senbon, then fixed his grey eyes in a deadly stare.

This was too much; the last straw! He'd told his enemies when the appointed hour was to be. Were they really so hungry for his death that they'd begrudge him these last few minutes?!

A shape, indistinct at first, began to emerge from the murky, vaporous haze; that of a powerful, striding figure.

Haku squinted at first then his brow lifted and his mouth fell open as the details materialized, revealing an impossible sight.

A chill fell over the astounded ninja who gasped in disbelief; his legs failed and he fell to one knee on the rough pavement, for arriving through the mist's dense palisades came a man, tall, heroically muscular and dark-haired; his chest bare over high-waisted, cloud-grey pants pin-striped with black. Camouflage-patterned sleeves and leggings swathed his shins and forearms; across his brow slanted the grey hitai-ate of the Ninja of the Hidden Mist. The newcomer's flawless physique suggested great deeds, while his every other aspect implied dark ones. Ebon eyes, more familiar to Haku than Haku's own, blazed over a face otherwise concealed by white wrappings.

Haku's gaze shimmered as he stared blank-faced, paralyzed and speechless when the man fixed a stern and paternal gaze down upon him.

_"Well, you shouldn't be so surprised, Haku,"_ intoned Zabuza Momochi, the notorious Demon of the Hidden Mist, in a deep, basal growl. The imposing figure tossed his head back and chuckled briefly, a tone that made the young fugitive's limbs shiver in recognition. _"Did you really think there was anything in this world you could survive that I could not?!"

* * *

_

**Inari**

Onward through the dense fog and Stygian darkness the boy slogged, a wretched, weary, solitary figure in teal overalls worn over a long-sleeved, white turtle-neck, both partially-saturated from mist and sweat.

_Almost there, _his thoughts hovered feebly, like a moth caught in a downpour.

Even though the child was exhausted, desperate and near to tears, he grinned with determination beneath the brim of his floppy white hat striped with blue.

_Almost…there! _he was almost too tired to think.

It had been a matter of pure dumb luck that Inari had stumbled across the partially-overgrown byway he'd dimly remembered would take him through the inland forest to the shoreline road which leads back to his house.

_Home…_the idea rippled powerfully through the depths and summits of his mind. Never in his life had he ached so bad to be somewhere.

Four days, only four days had the boy been away, having been kidnapped then kept in the company of criminals and killers, yet it seemed to him like a lifetime. The memories of his house, a place of warmth and safety, a place where his mother and grandfather's faces lit with smiles at the sight of him, pulled him with a compulsion felt in every particle of his being.

For hours and hours the engineer's grandson had walked, following the road's meandering, coastal path faithfully through the darkness and thickening billows of mist, mile after endless mile all throughout the night.

After the immediate peril of being lost in the woods had been resolved, the kid's thoughts had often turned back to the wayward ninja, Haku, with whom he'd parted company only hours before.

He'd given the guy quite a battle, Inari considered, and almost had him a couple of times. The boy wondered what Naruto would say about that, Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi-sensei too; would they be proud?

_What a weird guy that Haku is too,_ the boy pronounced as he remembered the fugitive. _'Looks and sounds all girly; throws those big needles around. And how could anybody STAND to be around that horrible Zabuza?!_

A scowl wrinkled the child's face.

Still, Inari had to admit, it felt great that he and Haku were friends now and he wouldn't have to kill him…because he WAS pretty tough.

_Hmm, friends?_ Inari wondered, pondered it for awhile then continued his doubtful analysis: _Friends -- I don't know, are we really 'friends' now? I think we GOT to be friends at least a little._

_But either way, _the boy exulted with proud satisfaction,_ Granddad's safe! And that's the important thing._

Inari's eyes lifted and brightened. Now, at last, the bridge-builder's grandson could see it -- the unmistakable gabled profile of his house, though it was only barely visible through the thick fog.

Inari blinked then refocused his gaze in case this was just a case of wishful thinking, or like one of those mirage things people see in the desert, but: _No!_ he realized happily. _That's it! That's the pier and there's the windmill!_

Shaky, tittering laughter gushed from the boy and tears filled his dark eyes, for he had never seen such a profoundly moving and heavenly sight in all his life.

Though it was, what his grandfather would call, an _ungodly_ hour of the morning, Inari saw the lights in the windows and knew they'd been left on for him. He knew that inside would be food and light, the familiar safety of his room, and the warm, dry, delicious comfort of his bed. But surpassing all by far (by FAR!) would be the sights, the sounds, the magnificent presences and the strong, warm, reassuring arms of his mom, Tsunami, and grandpa, Tazuna!

Even if they were mad at him, and he knew they would be, should be, and had good reason to be, their charged voices and harsh rebukes would be like music. At this moment, any punishment they could offer would be like…_birthday presents!_

Giggling like a maniac, Inari tried to run but could only manage a loping sort of hobble, with his lifeless feet dragging every step of the way. But it didn't matter! Nothing mattered! HE WAS ALMOST HOME!

Onward toward the pier that lead to his shoreline home Inari pushed himself, arms pumping, legs burning and threatening to give out, breath rattling in his throat. But as his destination grew closer something strange appeared from the darkness, arising from the mist like a vengeful phantom to bar his way.

So focused was Inari on the door to his house that he might have run straight into him, were if not for the stranger's right forearm which seemed to glow with a luminous, pale and preternatural, reflected light.

Staggering breathlessly to a halt, Inari looked up into a face that would almost have been familiar but for the haggard expression and the dull, cold madness in the eyes.

_Chuuya!_ Inari recognized him with a start, then instinctively 'muled-up' at being confronted by a boy close to his own age.

For some strange reason, despite all the greater dangers he'd faced in these last few days, he couldn't help but be a little afraid.

_What the heck is HE doing here at this hour; and why's he looking at me like that?_ Inari wondered, curious but apprehensive, and noted that the strange boy wore the very same clothes he'd worn last time they'd met -- an evergreen t-shirt and baggy, black shorts. _And why's his arm in a cast?_ the bridge-builder's grandson continued._ He wasn't in one before._

Slowly, Chuuya approached, his motions labored but purposeful. Inari's heart beat faster, his breath quickened then, like a ghost, the other boy simply…passed around him.

Inari waited a moment, strangely relieved as he heard Chuuya's footsteps start to fade.

The door to Inari's house implored him to come to it, but questions rooted the black-haired boy to the spot.

On impulse, Inari turned after the figure. "Wait," he cried, as he felt compelled to ask: "what are you doing here?"

The departing wraith stopped cold but remained eerily silent for a long time. Even from behind, Chuuya's shape was unmistakable -- managing to be both thin AND pudgy, with rounded shoulders, and a neck that seemed too thin to support such a large and conspicuously round head.

"I…I looked everywhere for you, Inari," replied Chuuya without turning, in a raspy, sleepy but intense voice, "everywhere I thought those two goons, Zori and Waraji coulda taken you. Then, after awhile, I figured I'd just come here and wait. I figured…you're bound to show up some time."

Inari's brow knitted. Chuuya's reasoning seemed to make sense, but in a very, very convoluted way. "But, why?"

"You know why!" Chuuya accused him in a nasally snarl. "Haku's GONE 'cause of you. He might even be…," the boy, the youngest of the Tezuka brood, swayed dizzily but quickly gathered himself. "I came here to KILL you, Inari."

Inari's breath pulsed. _He…he's serious!_ the engineer's grandson realized with a shock.

For some reason the threat felt sharper coming from a kid his own age, even though he knew that the world teemed with adults who held no compunction at all against killing a little kid. Maybe it was just the spooky way Chuuya had said it – flat, serious, no anger, just a simple statement of fact that scared him as much as Zori and Waraji, who were stone-faced killers, had, or Haku, who's sinister (albeit undeserved as it turned out) reputation preceded him.

"Well," Inari blurted in a stubborn voice, knowing it was a bad idea, as he canted his head, "what's stopping you?"

"I," Chuuya began in pained earnest; his voice quaking forlornly, "I just don't feel like it anymore." He clutched his head with his good hand. "I've been up for like four days straight now. My brain's so tired but my body won't let me sleep!"

"Huh?!" gasped Inari at this strange revelation. "You…you haven't slept the whole time I've been gone?!"

"The ANBU…those mist-ninjas gave me something."

Inari took a step toward Chuuya, wary but interested. "What?" he asked. "What did they give you?"

"Some pills," the boy answered in a shaky voice, "that's all I can remember."

"Chuuya," Inari began anew, tentatively but firmly, knowing the boy needed to know. "Haku…Haku's fine," the bridge-builder's grandson enlightened him, "I just saw him, like, a few hours ago. He's the one who rescued me."

Chuuya spun and, in a flash of movement, had covered the distance between them. The large-headed boy's left hand seized around the strap of Inari's overalls and the neck of his white turtle-neck with prodigious strength, lifting him clear off the ground and shaking him like a rag doll, with arms and legs flopping limply. "You DID?!" Chuuya cried manically, in a braying, boat-whistle voice that made Inari wince. "Where?! When?! Was he ok?!"

"He's fine, Chuuya, really!" Inari squeaked, bewildered at the weird boy's powers. "Let me go and I'll tell you!"

Chuuya put him down, but kept a desperate, clinging, finger-hold while the boy straightened his hat, then related all about how Haku had killed the rogue ninja company set to destroy the Land of Waves then got in a fight with this mean, horrible, tiger-lady named Juri.

"So…," Chuuya inquired keenly, with a face that veered between hope and oblivion, "where is he now?"

Inari shrugged. "He just said he had a lot of things to do," said the kid, trying to sound more mature and knowledgeable than he really was. "That's it."

Chuuya's face fell disappointedly, cheeks slack, eyes red and twitching.

"Wait," said Inari with energy. "I remember now! He told Juri and Yukimasa, um, that's one of the ANBU guys, that he'd meet them at dawn someplace. I think he's gonna fight 'em!"

"At dawn?" repeated Chuuya whose ragged expression screwed with thought. The boy then looked eastward through the mist toward the lightening horizon. "It's gotta be close to dawn now!" He turned again to Inari. "Where?!" the boy pleaded, "he must have said something?!"

"Just that…they'd know where when the time came."

Chuuya grimaced ferociously then spun around in the direction of the village with renewed determination.

"Wait," Inari prevailed, reaching after him. "Where are you going? Do you know where Haku went?"

"No idea!" the boy admitted at once, but in a voice overflowing with the power of the righteous. "That's why I got to start looking!"

In a flash he was gone, vanished into the mist with a burst of speed – exactly the kind that Haku, Naruto and the rest of his team had been able to summon.

Inari stared hard after Chuuya, supremely vexed, ebon eyes narrowed to slits.

_How?! How'd THAT kid get to be so strong?_ he thought, racked and riveted by jealously. _Is it 'cause…could Haku really be…his sensei?

* * *

_

**Haku**

**du·el**

Pronunciation: \ˈdü-əl _also_ ˈdyü-\

Function: _noun_

Etymology: Middle English, from Medieval Latin _duellum,_ from Old Latin, war

Date: 15th century

1 a combat between two persons; _specifically_ a formal combat with weapons fought between two persons in the presence of witnesses

2 a conflict between antagonistic persons, ideas, or forces; _also_ a hard-fought contest between two opponents

* * *

There on the mist-veiled Great Naruto Bridge, Haku looked up through the vaporous wisps, wiped his mouth sullenly and rose to his feet. Casting his master, The Demon of the Hidden Mist, a sour, critical glance, the young shinobi went to the guard-wall, rested his arms atop it and looked out into the fog. 

"You've done nothing," the teenager sneered, "but mock the life of a great ninja…and a great man." Haku turned and glared severely. "A much greater man than you will ever be a woman!"

Zabuza chuckled, putting both hands over his belly before he raised them and waggled his fingers. "Oooh, touchy, Ice-man!" he snickered snidely then wandered over to lean against the guard-wall also, several paces away from where Haku brooded. By the time he got there, he was the somewhat battle-scarred Juri again, having released her gen-jutsu.

"I just thought I'd return the favor," she offered with mock ingratiation, "since that was you pretending to be Satoki." The young woman chuckled cruelly as she leered, one eye widening. "I had you going there for a second though, didn't I?"

The two lingered on the bridge and stared into the thick mist's grey, oppressive opacity.

Juri's fingers tapped a manic drumbeat on the guard-walls precast cap. Her clothing, a black vest worn over a black t-shirt, and camouflage-patterned fatigue-style shorts, were cut, torn or frayed in spots over wounds that seemed fairly superficial -- streaks and patches of red against her brown skin. A black, copper-banded kufi still crowned her intense brow, capturing bleached-blond hair.

Haku abided unhurriedly, a figure frozen and stoic. The delicate and feminine features of his youthful face, as winsomely beautiful as a girl's, flickered with Byzantine emotions. Around his lean, sloped shoulders, black hair drifted, stirred slightly by the warm, gently-blowing breeze.

"SO…tell me," Juri began, with an angry edge distinct and audible under an otherwise casual voice. "What's this _really_ all about? Lord Hirai must have offered you…," her eyes bugged as she thought about it, "I can't even imagine what he must have offered you. But what did you do? You crapped all over him!

"Why, Haku?" she snarled, glaring right at him. "Why'd you do it?"

The young ninja said nothing, but stared out into the mists as if he hadn't heard.

"What?!" the woman persisted in a nasty tone then canted her head back toward shore, "was it this sh-t hole of a village, or all the sh-tty little people in it? Did you love sweating your life away in the hot sun so much, was that it?"

Juri stopped suddenly, turned then stared at him in bleak, naked disgust. "It's NOT that GIRL, is it?"

She stared harder, golden eyes piercing, as her face twisted into a scowl. "UGH! I'm gonna be sick!" the woman gasped in revulsion and flung out her arm. "No, seriously! I'm gonna throw up!"

Spinning angrily from the guard-wall, Juri began to pace frenetically, her footsteps clapping in loud meter. "Let me get this straight: you threw away the chance of a lifetime for LOVE?" she shouted, arms spread wide in a tense, outraged gesture. "Love is a f-f-f-cking FEELING!" Juri spat, as if to an idiot, "an ILLUSION! It's not REAL! Feelings change in an instant, for a thousand reasons or for no reason at all!

"I--," Juri sputtered, transported by apoplexy, so furious that she lost her words in a storm of anger, "she…you!"

The young woman broke off in frustration then stepped away to collect herself.

The lonely bridge, meanwhile, remained eerily quiet, as if the persistent fog had swallowed the rest of the world and left only this tiny quarter of it, inhabited by these two rivals.

"Well?" Juri insisted at last when she was calm again, in a voice that was ice-cold. "Don't you have _anything_ to say?"

Haku's grey eyes swiveled toward her. "I don't owe you an explanation."

Juri blinked in mild astonishment then nodded ambivalently. "Ah," she accepted with a smug, sarcastic smile. "Fine, maybe you don't. But there is one little thing you DO own me though," the young woman concluded pointedly, "your narrow ASS!"

Juri puffed her chest and scowled as she let her words sink in then added, in case her meaning still somehow eluded him: "You're not leaving here, Haku."

Zabuza's only disciple looked eastward through the mist and could tell there was light glowing beyond it, stronger than before.

Dawn had risen.

"A possibility, maybe," Haku allowed.

Together they stepped slowly to the middle of the bridge's grey pavement. Though this structure had been complete for only a few scant weeks, its historical significance could not be denied. Men had fought and died here. On these precincts a tyrant had been (quite literally) overthrown, a demon had met his end, and an entire country had rediscovered its courage by following one, impassioned little boy to war.

When Haku had invited his oppressors, he had not been at all ambiguous. Of all the places in the Land of Waves, only one presented itself as an appropriate venue for a final showdown.

"Y'know something, Iceman," said Juri in an oddly confiding tone, "I knew from the very moment we met that I'd end up having to kill you."

Haku raised an eyebrow and looked back at her – an adversary in predominant black against a backdrop of swirling grey. "I'm sure you say that about everyone you meet," he replied levelly.

The woman gave him a hard, cavalier grin and cocked her head.

In a slow, sure movement, Juri let her right leg drift back a step, then settled into a low stance. Taut muscles quivered like bowstrings as her hands crossed with slow tension; the right pulling back by her ear compressed into a fist while the left unfolded toward her enemy in the 'bridge hand' formation – palm facing out, all the fingers curled in except the forefinger which was straight up.

Zabuza's student took note of her statuesque pose then, deciding to play along, dipped into a long, low posture, arms extending, wrists bent, fingers gathered and pressed together at the tips.

A glimmer crossed Juri's eyes, the faintest flash of joy, before she charged. Springing forward, sudden and sure as the beast she emulated, her tiger-palms exploded toward Haku's face and clawed down at his arms with ripping, pin-wheeling fury.

Engaging her, the fugitive ninja deflected and parried each blow as they came, slipping away from Juri's superior power, his arms sliding along and past hers to target eyes, throat, arteries and nerve clusters with rigid fingers and one-knuckled, 'phoenix-eye' punches.

Juri, fierce and unaffected by Haku's blows, pressed the attack.

Haku fell back, pretending to be off-balance, then dropped suddenly to sweep out her leg with his. Faster than the eye could follow, the back of the ninja's calf slammed into Juri's ankle…and was stopped cold, as if her legs were steel columns. The girl chambered her foot high then stomped hard at Haku's vulnerable knee but the fugitive recalled his momentum, rolled away then sprang back and high into the misty air.

With a motion made smooth and perfect from years of tortuous practice, Haku let loose with an explosive spray of senbon. The steel spines shot through the air; it was all Juri could do to shield herself with her arms.

Landing lightly, Haku raised his head to see his senbon fall one by one to the pavement, tinkling like chimes when they hit. When Juri's thick forearms lowered, the young shinobi could see she was completely unharmed.

_Her chakra,_ Haku considered, eyes growing wide, _it's so strong. My strikes…even my senbon have no effect because Juri's projecting her chakra out from her body, allowing her to distribute an incoming attack's energy over a wide surface area._

_It's a devilish technique; one that makes her nearly invulnerable._

Smiling viciously, Juri inhaled a sharp, hissing breath; her fingers flew then through a series of signs as she jumped forward with her arms crossed over her chest, hands tensed into claws. As she landed, Juri's fingers tore the air, sending forth ten lashing tendrils of energy at Haku, as she once had at a trapped and wounded Eiji. The force of her chakra, then as now, crackled like lightning, scorching and scarring the pavement as it went rippling forth.

Though the fugitive's grey eyes went wide, his body was already responding, darting toward a gap in the fiery onslaught and forming seals of his own as he went.

Grimacing at the heat which seared his clothes and singed his hair, Haku completed his jutsu. When he rolled to his feet, the shinobi grinned somewhat at the sight of Juri surrounded by his water clones.

Lord Hirai's student snorted disdainfully and braced her fists on her hips as she looked around at a full score of identical enemies, with a critical expression on her face.

Haku's doubles attacked: two lead charges from either side with fully-committed flying wheel kicks which Juri blocked easily with upraised forearms. Focusing on one, the girl clawed down on the offending clone's leg to bring him toward her then smashed his face with the hooking heel of her palm. As the water clone gushed apart, Juri rolled her eyes.

"What am I doing?" she barked at herself in exasperation then backpedaled smoothly, with all the clones following in pursuit.

The Hakus closed in, attacking from all directions with an onslaught of furious kicks and punches but, one after the other, Juri seized them and flung them, slung them or struck them, sending them flying into space – over the guard-wall, into the mist and off the edge of the bridge.

The girl wiped her hands with exaggerated vigor.

"Kind of a one-trick pony, aren't you?" offered Juri to the one Haku that remained, "preparing the field with water clones so you can use your Ten-Thousand Needles of Death jutsu." She smiled queerly and wagged her finger at him. "I'm onto you, not that it would matter even if you _did_ land that technique."

Haku winced, although he conceded she had a point. Lord Hirai's chiromancy had lent her strength that was truly spectacular.

_And if that's not bad enough,_ the ninja foresaw as he cast a careful glance around, _she might not be the only enemy I'll have to face._

Juri strutted forward, noticing his expression. "Oh, are you worried about who else is gonna show up? Don't be," stated she. "The ANBU are dead; I killed them. So you see…we've got all the time in the world."

Haku gasped slightly; surprise penetrating his aloof demeanor. _Could that be true?_ he wondered. _Is she really strong enough to kill a whole hunter-ninja team alone?_

"And in case you think you can just run off or something," Juri bullied, "think again. I can and will hunt you down. And whether it means anything to you or not, if you run, I WILL take it out on those poor bastards who hid you, that bean-pole lookin' girl…and maybe this whole f-cking town!"

The woman watched in obvious satisfaction as Haku's expression changed to match his concern.

"Does that bother you, Iceman," Juri crowed fiercely, eyes afire with rapture, "me burning your little playhouse down? That's what's gonna happen after I kill you, Haku. No ANBU, no you, so who's gonna stop me, huh?"

Pressing his lips together, Haku brought a hand up and his fingers flew through a sequence of signs at which a wind arose, surrounding him with its whirling powers.

Juri braced, rooting herself in a deep stance, eager to meet him; thin cracks radiated from where the girl planted her feet.

Spinning forward, the ninja lashed at her with a flurry of palms and punches. Conflicting chakras burst as Juri blocked, her expert forearms moving in short, tight arcs. Though slower, the power expressed in her sweeping movements unbalanced Haku, setting him back on his heels.

Seizing the moment, the woman powered her lead hand through Haku's guard and smashed him in the face. Her following rear hand fell short only because the ninja stumbled backward but Juri quickly gathered her energy, raised her lead tiger-palm to her ear then leaped into a low crouch. Landing almost between Haku's feet, Juri's claw thundered into the fugitive shinobi's stomach and sent him flying.

The shock of impact, more forceful than Haku could have imagined, blasted the breath from his lungs. Speckles of light and dark filled his vision while the world rushed by in a grey blur…another impact then when the ninja felt himself hit the pavement and go tumbling over it.

"HA!" roared Juri victoriously, clearly audible through Haku's dazed senses, "that was too easy! Demon's Apprentice, my ass!"

Though he urged it, Haku's body did not wish to respond. Blood poured from his broken nose, split lip, and a semi-circular pattern of puncture wounds in his mid-section; his muscles and organs trembled from the power of her blow and the malignant chakra she'd put into it which flowed now like venom through his nervous system.

The ninja's eyes rolled dizzily for a moment before they were able to focus. Instinctively he rolled aside in case a follow-up stomp was coming then slowly pushed himself up on quaking arms.

Pain throbbed through his head and stomach as he directed his chakra to seal up blood vessels and restore the energy flow Juri's strike had disrupted; no easy task.

"It's kinda funny how you picked this place, of all places, to fight," the young woman ventured in a casual tone. "But it makes sense though; I can totally see it."

Juri tilted her chin up as she limbered her fingers. "All that crap you put me though," she continued, "all that crap you put _yourself_ through, and it turns out you're gonna die here anyway. Ha! You shoulda saved yourself the f-cking trouble and died the first time!"

Rising slowly to his feet, arms clutched over his stomach and pain clear in his face, Haku staggered away, retreating into the mist.

Juri started angrily then furrowed her brow. "What did I tell you about running away?!" she blared and charged after him.

Rushing through the fog, Juri quickly came upon the ninja who was huddled over with his arms raised over his face in a pitiful, protective gesture. Without even a thought, Juri licked her lips then pivoted sharply and sent both tiger palms exploding forward. Her prey shattered into a spray of glistening, crystalline shards.

Knowing Juri would not be delayed long by his ice-clone subterfuge and fighting back the effects of his injuries, Haku rushed her, materializing like a phantom from the fog's depths. His jumping heel kick slammed into the side of Juri's head; the impact rattled her even through her defenses and sent her black kufi flying. The young fugitive followed up with a quick, hooking blow with the back of his wrist into her cheek then darted away before she could recover.

Juri lashed out wildly before she slowly gathered herself then stopped, her expression a grimacing grin. With deliberation, the woman found her hat and tucked her blond locks under it as she replaced it back atop her head.

"You're so right, my friend," she granted charitably, and loud enough for him to hear. "A quick death doesn't suit you at all, oh, no, no, no!"

The girl then rose to her feet, ignoring a snowflake that drifted lazily past her face, and began to search the swirling mist for Haku.

* * *

_Hey, a mere 5,600 words or so! Short, sweet, fantastique? I'll leave all of that for you to decide , but I do hope you liked that._

_I'd like to thank everyone who's dropped me a review and added me to their faves. Thanks, everyone! Some people play WoW or GameCube, and I do this, so it means a lot ;)_

_Take care, and I'll see you next time! -- Jono'_


	17. Chapter 17

**Juri**

With a dreamy smile, Lord Hirai's disciple paced leisurely through the murky fog, following a sporadic trail of glossy, crimson spots over the Great Naruto Bridge's otherwise grey and lusterless pavement.

_So much to do,_ Juri Chono mused, quite pleased with herself. _You know, I think the old man will be more than happy to take me back when I bring him your head, Haku._

_But then again,_ she reconsidered,_ who needs him? All anybody needs to take over THIS dump is to be able to make people fear. Gato proved that; and that's the point Lord Hirai was trying to get through to me the whole time._

The girl chuckled to herself then stroked back a lock of dyed blond hair that had strayed from beneath her flat-topped cap.

_He was SO right!_ she reaffirmed, now that the concept seemed obvious._ I mean, what are people really afraid of – death, pain, losing their stuff, losing their friends and families. Clinging to things so easily threatened, no wonder they're so easy to scare; no wonder it's so easy to make them do what you want._

The young woman's tapping footsteps drew to a halt. She was not at all surprised that the trail of blood had suddenly ended.

Laughing lightly, she shook her head then crouched down, smeared one of the glistening spots, then rubbed its luxurious red texture between her forefinger and thumb. "Yeah, that definitely would have been too easy, huh? So tell me," Juri called out in feigned amicability then blew a trespassing snowflake off her nose with a quick, upward breath, "what's the plan, more hit-and-run?"

With a bemused, thoughtful hum the girl went to her pouches and took a stack of shuriken into each hand, her fingers gripping securely around the notches. _You're not the only one around here who knows some tricks,_ she thought as she began to charge the weapons with her chakra.

At last the attack came. Even though she fully expected it, not knowing the exact moment, it still came as something of a surprise. Steel spines flashed from the fog, which Juri easily swatted away. Subtle vibrations through the pavement warned her that The Demon's Apprentice was using his speed to attack from the direction opposite that of his senbon, which were just a distraction.

Whirling around, she barked a shout and slashed with the points of her hand-held shuriken at Haku's head in a powerful, sweeping arc that missed just barely as the ninja ducked low and smashed her with an upward-angled hammer-fist between her legs.

The ninja pivoted, sweeping away with his forearm the hand that guarded the fierce woman's face then crashed down over her brow with the slicing edge of his opposite fist.

Juri leaped back a step and glared furiously, nose and brow wrinkling with hate. _What the…?!_ her thoughts boiled. _Did he just…?!_

Although Haku's actual blows had done little because of the way she was projecting her chakra, being 'tagged' thusly in a sensitive area spurred her to outrage.

The girl snarled -- a harsh, bestial utterance that rang through the fog and dusty snowfall; she gave chase, slashing and smashing at her prey who dodged and slipped her attacks, as elusive as a bead of mercury. Fog whirled and billowed away from the force and speed of her blows while Haku ducked and dodged, seeming to fade before them but never falling.

Juri pressed the retreating shinobi all the way to the opposite guard-wall but he then lateralled just quickly enough so that her cutting, downward smash shattered concrete instead with an eruption of fragments and grey dust.

In a moment of cold clarity Juri turned after him and let loose with her chakra-infused shuriken, flinging one handful then the other. The missiles glowed as they sailed through the air, spinning and waving in wild, unpredictable trajectories, like a cloud of angry hornets in the misty air.

Forced to concentrate on the shuriken, Haku dodged, deflecting the rest in a series of rapid-fire strikes with a senbon clutched in his fist. Juri saw at once her opportunity and vanished in a burst of speed. That instant she re-appeared behind the ninja, right where she knew he'd be, and struck him hard across the back with a forearm – striking with the force of a ship's boom turning into the wind.

The slender teenager gasped sharply, sprawled to his hands and knees then cried out as Juri kicked him soccer-style in the ribs with a blur of motion. The energy of the blow sent the ninja flying back in a low trajectory that carried him crashing back-first into the guard-wall. Concrete cracked; fragments spalling and flaking away at the impact. The young fugitive collapsed in a limp heap.

_Ah! _Juri's thoughts sang excitedly as she charged, flung a pair of kunai-knives at Haku's heart then leaped at where he lay, cocking both knees into her chest in mid-air as she sailed, ready to lay-into his prone form with both booted feet.

Unbelievably, Zabuza's apprentice rolled onto his belly, pushed off with his palms and the tips of his toes to launch himself straight up from the ground, letting the knives go spinning under him, then tucked and rolled away as Juri's legs rocketed through where he'd been. The woman's heels blasted into the guard-wall, shearing its steel moorings and sending a blocky section of concrete sailing off into space.

_He's still quick! _Juri realized, drew her hand back and clawed the pavement. All five fingers punched into concrete, stopping her momentum cold; she then spun her hips, pin-wheeled her legs and came to her feet ready to fight but the bridge was as empty, quiet and forlorn as a lost ruin.

_Gone again,_ she thought and frowned, highly annoyed. _The little punk-ass is hiding in this damn mist again._

Juri's golden eyes dropped in search of any tell-tale spatters of blood, but the only ones she saw were by the edge of the bridge where the now-missing section of guard-wall had been.

The woman rose and cast her searching stare in a wide, arcing path, then canted them up curiously.

It was snowing, with bright speckles of white swirling in weird vortices amidst the grey, omnipresent fog.

Juri's dark brow furrowed.

_Just another stupid trick,_ she concluded dismissively, _just more of your bullsh-t._

Lord Hirai's student brought her hands up and clapped sarcastically, her applause echoing against the calm and the distant whispers of the unseen waves below.

"Nice trick, Icema --," Juri started to say then noticed how her breath misted white in the chilly air that had been warm not long ago.

Concerned now, she blew out a full breath between pursed lips and watched the vaporous plume flow away from her then vanish.

_Don't fall for this,_ Juri warned herself after a long pause, brought a hand to her forehead and tapped it hard with the tip of her finger. _Just don't. This is how ninja F-CK with your head! They do a little smoke-and-mirrors bullsh-t and your mind blows it all out of proportion 'cause you think they're gettin' all supernatural and sh-t on you._

_Haku ain't sh-t,_ the fierce, young woman reassured herself, baring teeth as she scowled. _How do you know that? Because HE got beat up by a couple of low-life, bottom-feeding, piece-of-crap little genin from some piss-ant Hidden Village, with no experience and hardly a pubic-hair between 'em. Yeah, them, and some worthless, pretty, little pink-haired kunoichi who was good for nothing but standing around and crying!_

_Sh-t! Any REAL ninja woulda killed 'em all AND that damn, meat-sack, old bridge-builder in a SECOND, and it wouldn't have even been a thought!_

A grin settled over her umber-hued face as her confidence returned. _And don't forget,_ Juri reminded herself, _YOU'VE already f-cked with HIS head, telling him that you killed all the ANBU: the two bitches, Mr. No-personality, and the fat guy. If Haku isn't scared sh-tless of you, he SHOULD be._

Juri looked again into the snow and fog, then anxiously licked her lips. _Besides,_ she remembered with a savoring smile, _there's that one little detail he might be overlooking: HE'S ALREADY DEAD!

* * *

_

**Haku**

Alone in the fog and winter's chill, Haku huddled on his knees and grimaced in pain. Though a strategy had formed in his mind, the young fugitive had to acknowledge that it might not be enough.

His youthful, angelic and girlish face throbbed from where Juri had hit him, and pain jolted through his body whenever he drew breath. But there were worse things than the various puncture wounds left by the woman's iron finger-tips, and the broken ribs left by her kick. Those could be overcome in the short term by using his chakra along with some body-control methods Zabuza had taught him.

The real problem was that Juri had struck him with a 'poison-hand' technique famous to the water-element school of tai-jutsu. She had, quite obviously, managed to incorporate it into her tiger-style boxing -- a fire-element system. Haku hadn't expected that level of sophistication from her, and he really should have, especially considering who her master was.

It was inside him now, Juri's chakra, coiled and waiting to strike at his vital organs though his neural pathways. Haku had already used his vast knowledge of acupressure to head off the worst of it, but knew he'd have to do more if he wanted to survive this. Even then, there was no way to be sure.

Frowning pensively as he went into his quivers, the fugitive drew forth three senbon then stabbed them into his own flesh at specific points – nerve junctions along his clavicle, right forearm and left outer thigh, and hoped the way he'd altered the flow of energy along his meridians would be enough.

Though he grimaced and his eyes welled, Haku found he had to stifle laughter. _You know, that really hurts!_ he thought with an affected pique and shock of surprise. _No w-wonder Naruto punched me in the face! I-I think…I think I might have had that coming._

Of course, remembering what he had done to the poor, yellow-haired leaf-genin and his friend, Sasuke, Haku knew he had no right to even THINK about complaining.

The silvery-grey mist wafted thick around him, and Haku found reassuring comfort in the cold clutches of its embrace. Having been trained by one of the greatest mist-ninja Kirigakure had ever produced, perhaps THE best ever at the art of the silent kill, Haku was very much at home here. The mist was a friend to him, an ally in a war that had just barely begun.

Haku quaked as a strange realization fell over him -- despite his injuries, despite his imminent peril, and being locked in combat with a woman who was violent, enormously powerful and very probably psychopathic, entire portions of his being were…exceedingly happy.

His body was getting into rhythm, having been punished and conditioned for years by a grueling training regimen, then forged and tested in battle-after-pitched-battle in an audacious but ill-fated campaign most would not have survived. War was a familiar thing and Haku could feel his every muscle, nerve and organ, every particle of his biology, respond to it like an orchestra before a great conductor.

And his blood! His ancient blood, inherited from a ninja-clan people spoke of only in whispers, was singing again, filling his head with those strange harmonies that resonated with the air and water.

As the corners of his mouth began to curl upward, Haku shook his head vigorously to try and refocus.

_Juri,_ the shinobi contemplated seriously, _she's not like Naruto, Sasuke or Sakura…not even like Kakashi. They were fighting FOR something or someone…a cause, a person, to prove something to themselves and their friends._

_Even Zabuza killed to advance or express his power._

_Juri's something else – a true killer, the real thing, someone who has a taste for it. She kills for the act itself._

Again, as he had briefly in his battle with the ANBU and at times at Zabuza's side, Haku contended against a disturbing, almost ecstatic rush – sensual, familial. The fugitive bit his lip as he tried to fight it off.

_Your kind got carried away with their craving for war, that's why people started to hunt you down. That's why you're the only one left,_ the fugitive reminded himself._ They fear you, and they are right to._

_Still…my blood-gift, my kekkei-genkai._

Haku's thoughts hovered ambivalently. His heritage and the powers it brought had cost him his mother and father; turned him into a killer before he'd even had much of a concept of life and death -- a true grasp of how precious and irreplaceable life really was.

The young fugitive's so-called gift was a double-edged sword, and had made him despised throughout the Land of Water; Haku could never have lived a normal life but yet it had also brought him to Zabuza, a great man, a legend among shinobi, and made an abandoned, purposeless boy useful in his eyes.

Whatever his misgivings, the ninja knew he would need all its powers now if he wished to prevail, if he wished to safeguard Mari and the rest of her family…the whole rest of this village for that matter.

_More then that,_ Haku came to realize, _I will have to trust my kekkei-genkai…give myself over to it as I never have before._

_But therein lies the problem – how can I be sure it serves me and not me…it?_

_Either way,_ he thought furiously, _I can't let myself be soft-hearted, not like with Naruto and Sasuke; not this time. My own skill won't be enough, and Zabuza isn't around to cover for my failures._

Lifting his head, Haku resolved, not without regret: _I shall have to kill her.

* * *

_

**Juri**

Stalking single-mindedly through the mist and falling snow, Juri suddenly stopped and looked up at this unexpected sight: Haku standing right there, calmly waiting for her.

The girl's dark eyebrows rose for a moment then furrowed as she looked him up and down: at his cool, expressionless face; flowing black hair; grey fatigue pants and that blue tunic she knew concealed an arsenal of senbon.

On the one hand, it was disappointing that her 'fatal strike' had not yet been fatal; however, it pleased her that her plaything was still around to provide her with more amusement.

"Oh, THERE you are," Juri began coyly, though her senses told her to be on guard. The girl gave him a mean, tight-lipped grin then flexed her wide shoulder blades. "Ready for round two?"

The ninja stared back at her somberly as Juri judged the distance between them then sprang. The woman slashed with a left, then used the momentum to transition and thrust with her right. Haku sidestepped and parried her claw-fingered hand adroitly, but it had only been a feint. Dropping low and spinning, the girl's leg whipped through Haku's shins hard enough to break bones and knocked him off his feet, almost parallel with the ground. Before the ninja could even fall an inch Juri punished him twice in the chest with thudding tiger-palms, but on that second blow Haku burst into a watery cascade.

"What?!" the girl protested vehemently in surprise, spit flying, as she stepped back with arms wide. "MORE water clones; you GOT to be kidding me! Just what good --?"

A form burst forth from the mist. Juri ducked as the instep kick whizzed just over her head, pass-blocked the oncoming fist and countered with a straight tiger-claw. Haku looped his punching hand around and hooked her oncoming blow away then speared his other hand over the top, jolting her in the face. Reversing his hands, Haku uncoiled with the back of his wrist towards her eye-socket but Juri was wary enough to tuck her chin and took the blow in the forehead instead.

The ninja fell back to regroup, at which Juri rushed after him too quickly. In a flash she saw Haku rise and spin into a blur: the sea blue of his tunic; the grey of his fatigues, and then the dark sole of his foot speeding toward her.

Gritting her teeth, Juri braced for impact and turned to take it the upper arm but something was wrong. The water clone she'd killed, that had burst all over the pavement, had frozen into a thin, slick, sheet of ice. She wasn't rooted at all!

Haku's heel slammed into Juri's arm as she'd planned but the impact sent her streaking backward. The woman wobbled for a moment as the ice transitioned to concrete at the edge, then shouted in surprise as she looked down to find Haku clutching her leg, sitting on her foot with arms and legs wrapped around to weigh her down.

Another Haku quickly alighted on the other leg from behind while four more materialized and wrestled with her arms. As she started to shake them loose, the mist vomited forth four more Demon's Apprentices – two cinched their arms around her waist while the other two tackled.

Alarmed, Juri looked up at Haku…the one she felt sure was the original, and saw a blue blur as he vanished with a burst of motion.

In an instant everything went black as the rough fabric of Haku's tunic sealed around her face then ripped her head backwards and down.

_Sh-t!_ thought Juri as Haku and his water-clone army wrestled her to the pavement and she realized her peril. _This isn't a fight; this is like…an assassination!_

As strong as the woman was, Haku and his clones had the advantage of numbers and leverage now, and being able to hold her down while attacking at the same time. Blind and half-deaf from the way her head was wrapped up, Juri could feel scores of sharp senbon clutched in fists raining down on her. Those stabs were impotent for now because the girl's massive internal energies still protected her, but Haku surely knew what he was doing and searched for those spots where her chakra flow was weaker. It would not be long until he found them.

The first thing to do was stay calm, Juri coached herself. _Yeah, right! This motherf-cker's trying to KILL me!_

Her powerful body arched as she roared a stream of muffled obscenities into Haku's tunic. On another, less emotional, level she had to appreciate her killer's work._The Demon's Apprentice,_ the young woman reconsidered. _Maybe that really IS you after all._

Before her fight with the ANBU, Juri had eaten two of her master's scrolls.

_I'd say THAT was a good call!_ she commented certainly as she remembered.

The daoist spells inscribed on those tiny rolls of parchment yielded her power undreamt of, though only for a while. How long? There was really no way to tell. She'd never tested that before. While they were in effect though, Lord Hirai's chiromancy made her a conduit for the vast energies that flowed between earth and heaven – a power greater by far than any ninja's, a portion of the entire planet's living chakra!

Haku had made a good move, sure, but it would amount to nothing. As long as she stayed calm and focused, and kept her breath and internal energies flowing, she had nothing to fear.

Having her head wrapped up like this stilled her breath and was a problem if she allowed it to go on, but it was easily remedied.

Juri started to snicker, then laughed at what she thought the expression on the ninja's face would be in right about…two seconds!

* * *

**Haku**

Haku struggled, grimacing as he knelt behind Juri who lay before him, mobbed and immobilized by his water-clones. Straining harder, with his breath misting in the wintry cold air, the ninja struggled to tighten his grip around the twisted fabric of his blue tunic that he had wrung tightly around the fearsome woman's head.

A quick pulse drew his attention immediately as he felt the power building in the captive Juri's lower abdomen – her 'hara', the center of her chakra. Putting aside his disbelief, the fugitive abandoned his hold on her, stumbled to his feet and fled with all the speed he could summon; the shockwave that followed from the explosion behind him threw him down hard to the pavement.

Rolling to his feet, Haku looked back through the fog and saw Juri's hunched, upright shape black amidst the haze. Her fingers came together to form hand seals and a bright spark flared, illuminating the gruesome rictus of her face in stark chiaroscuro, an instant before it came streaking toward him.

Haku's eyes went wide and he threw himself to the side in an all-out diving roll as the tiny, painfully-bright, ball of light sizzled by; the power of its radiating heat bored a tunnel through the mist and snowfall, vaporized an iron lamppost it passed close to and cracked the white-speckled pavement behind it in its wake.

_The…the power of her jutsu!_ the shinobi considered in awe, then remembered the scrolls she'd eaten. _Of course,_ he added, though the explanation brought him no measure of comfort.

The teenager leaped again as another meteor flashed by then slammed into the guard-wall with an explosion that sent forth a fountain of hot fragments. Haku stumbled away, lifting his arms up to shield his face. Juri's jutsu was starting to find its mark, and she wasn't leaving him any time to counter.

Another flash of light and again a meteor shot towards him; this one bending its path to adjust to the ninja's movements. Leaping toward the edge of the bridge, Haku flung himself clear over the guard-wall, drew out a bundle of senbon in his fist and hammered them into the wall's concrete cap as it went under him. The ninja looked down into the swirling mists below, tightened his grip then swung himself around by his anchored senbon, feeling the missile's searing heat as it flashed past.

The fugitive sailed through the air, passing back over the guard-wall on his return arc, hit the pavement then rolled to his feet. Juri was right there to meet him with an onslaught of fierce, whirling and slashing blows with her tiger-claws. Haku blocked left then right, but Juri spun and her fingers raked down his shoulder and upper arm, ripping skin and leaving four bloody streaks.

Haku pistoned kicks into her stomach and thighs, which she weathered easily then clawed across his ribs. Fingers, like knives, tore through his vest and the flesh beneath it, sending scores of senbon spinning through the air, bouncing and clinking as they tumbled to the pavement.

As the wounded ninja retreated, Juri's fingers flew through a series of seals that ended with both clawed hands at the center of her chest, one above the other, palms facing; between them formed another ball of blazing light.

"Ninja art: Dragon Seed Jutsu!" screeched Lord Hirai's disciple as she sent it rocketing forth.

Off-balance, wide-eyed and knowing he had no chance to dodge it even as she prepared her technique, Haku brought up a hand and prepared a jutsu of his own. At once a wind arose, whirling around him with the power of a tornado.

The missile struck his hastily-prepared shield and burst in a hellish eruption of orange and red that coursed around and up the wind's furious vortex, twisting upwards into the fog and snow-thickened air, and sent Haku's nearly-unconscious body flying backwards, high and fast over the Great Naruto Bridge.

* * *

**Juri**

"That's it!" Juri seethed, her hot breath gushing fountains of white vapor. "You're dead!"

Of course, the ferocious young woman wouldn't really believe that until she saw Haku's bloody corpse – a sight the girl eagerly awaited. But really, her Dragon Seed Jutsu ought to have done the trick.

Wringing her fingers in anticipation, Lord Hirai's student went forward along the mist-shrouded bridge confident but wary, her feet trailing footsteps in the newly-fallen snow.

_Wow,_ she remarked to herself as the snow began to descend in thick curtains, with fat flakes settling on tops of her muscular shoulders and her black, kufi hat. She wiped her brow as they melted on her tan-skinned face then ran down her forehead, cheeks and the slope of her nose.

_It's really coming down,_ Juri observed._ Is that you, Iceman? Just another trick…or is this your death throws?_

Juri grinned at the idea, rubbed her hands and earlobes then looked up at a blossoming pair of faint orange glows, visible only just barely through the haze.

_Ah,_ she realized after a moment of tension. Those would be her errant missiles touching down somewhere along the coastline on the other side of the bridge, bringing fire and ruin. _Oh, well…sucks to be you._

The snow was so heavy now she could barely see from one side of the bridge to the other, let alone what lay ahead. The obscuring fog had already closed down visibility to just a few paces, and seemed to press claustrophobically close. There was no sky and no horizon, but only a flat field of white that came out from the mist and snow as she walked and then vanished almost immediately behind her.

A shiver passed through the woman, and Juri hugged her arms against her waist. Vapor steamed off her sweat-moistened skin. When had it gotten so damn cold!?

Everything seemed quiet and strange, lonely and desolate without the rush of battle.

Juri's breath quickened then as she saw, coming into view just ahead, a big bare splotch in the pavement's thin mantle of snow.

_That's where he landed! _the young woman realized and jogged forward expectantly. Juri followed the track past three oblong islands of gray against the field of fresh white then past a longer, smeared path where Haku's body had rolled. At its end was a patch of wet concrete, but no Haku.

"AHHG!" barked Juri, her face a mask of disappointment, who stamped her feet and tossed her head in disbelief. "Give it up, Iceman!" she demanded stridently, then coughed in the arctic air. "You did way better than I thought you would, but you can't win! Why do you want to die a little bit at a time when I can make it quick!? Huh!?"

Spinning sharply, Lord Hirai's disciple hissed a breath as a figure appeared though the layered veils of mist and snow. She rushed toward it but when she came close, there was nothing there. Another phantom materialized – a dim, grey shape at the edge of her peripheral vision.

Juri's hand flashed, sending forth a volley of shuriken at her prey; she then leaped to engage him but again found no one. Panting for breath, she chuckled grimly and paused to regroup.

"Oh, I see," grumbled the young woman, as angry at herself as at Haku for being his puppet. "You're just goin' to mess with me, is that it? Is THAT it!?" her rasping voice echoed. "Let me tell you something; let me let you in on a little secret – all your clever little techniques, your diversions, your f-cking mind-games are just an ILLUSION of strength. I'VE got the real f-cking thing, bitch! So how are you gonna win this?!"

Gathering her fearsome energies, Juri again brought her clawed hands to the center of her chest, facing palm to palm. Summoning a fiery sphere with her Dragon Seed Jutsu, the woman let it fly down the length of the bridge and watched it bore a tunnel through the mist and snowfall.

"You like that?!" Juri railed, hot with anger. "How about this?!"

She quickly conjured another and sent it rocketing down the other way. Again, again, and again she cast her flaming comets, firing randomly into the mist until the bridge steamed and boiled. Seconds later, the echo of distant explosions throbbed, their destructive glow visible even through the snowstorm and vaporous haze.

Still without reward, Juri stormed to the center of the bridge, made a sequence of seals and crossed her claw-fingered hands. Stoking her still-considerable chakra, she then came forward with arms circling wide around her. From her fingers, ten, blazing tendrils of energy lashed through the air, slashing in every direction.

Juri glared around, dizzy and stumbling. Had she really missed with all of that?

The young woman wiped her mouth with an arm, then sucked in a breath of air so cold it burned down into her lungs. She was wheezing; her toes, earlobes, cheeks, and tip of her nose were cold…losing feeling.

_What the hell's happening?_ wondered Juri as her vision blurred. It was so hard to see with this fog and all the snow coming down. _Getting…weaker!_

_The…the snow,_ she thought and grit her teeth, not liking where her thoughts lead. _It's Haku's kekkei-genkai, sure. But maybe…maybe it's more than just a trick. Maybe he made it this cold to suck out my heat, and thinned the air too so he could drain my breath and with it…my chakra._

The idea drifted through her mind, like black ink spreading through clear water. _I was so caught up with killing him, _Juri considered, _I-I didn't notice._

Speckles filled her sight, whether it was the snow…or blood-vessels letting her know she was being slowly asphyxiated, she couldn't quite tell. Either way she watched as, on the other edge of the bridge, a hand rose slowly over the guard-wall.

Finding purchase, the hand braced flat and allowed a foot to join it a few feet away. With a smooth, gymnastic movement, The Demon's Apprentice pushed himself up to a raptorial perch then gently hopped down to the bridge.

His blue tunic gone now, Haku stood instead in a torn, tan vest that housed his supply of senbon in layered quivers. A portion of it was ripped open, exposing pale, bare skin that was streaked and smeared with blood, while the remainder still held his weapons in neat, overlapping rows, with only the pointed upper third visible above the fabric lining.

The ninja stepped forward coolly while Juri gasped for breath, as if she were up high, marooned on the highest mountain peak on the coldest day of the most punishing winter.

"I was hiding under the bridge," the strange fugitive let her know, "holding on between the concrete beams." Haku looked toward the diffuse and flickering glow of fires raging on the distant, mist-veiled shores, and Juri saw his expression change. Emotion rippled like a wave over his face, transforming it from placid…to tortured. "So," he began again in a tremulous, barely controlled intensity, his tearing eyes flashing peculiarly, "don't you feel a little stupid now?"

Juri shook her head, stunned in disbelief, tried to move, tried to breathe but it was hard. Her legs were shaky and she was feeling light-headed.

"And look at what you've done," the ninja observed unsettlingly before looking back up at her. "You've melted all the snow."

Without the slightest telegraphing flash, Haku spun, forming one-handed seals as he went. The toe of his boot slashed an arc on the ponded pavement, kicking up a curtain of water then, coming to a stop, he stood scarecrow-straight, arm held out with the first two fingers of his hand pointed squarely at the gasping Juri, whose golden eyes widened in recognition at this – Haku's Ten-thousand Needles of Death Jutsu.

Juri turned away and braced as an artic wind, the kind that could drive a straw inches-deep into a telephone pole, and carrying with it a cloud of razor-pointed ice needles, blasted through her and sent the woman sailing and spinning though the air. Lord Hirai's disciple hit the pitiless concrete hard, bounced twice, then went rolling over and over like a rag-doll through the slushy water.

When at last her world stopped moving the girl blinked and found herself flat on her back, looking straight up into the comfortless fog, her kufi long gone and her hair, a blond mop, plastered across her face.

As Juri slowly pushed herself up to her knees, her limbs quaked and tingled with pain; her clothing was torn and soggy, and her body was awash with thin, red streams – a mixture of blood and snowmelt. Her chakra – it had still been strong enough to protect her vital areas but had weakened around the insides of her upper arms, legs, and flanks which were peppered with ice needles.

Gritting her teeth against the cold, the pain and the shock, Juri had just managed to come again to her feet when she felt the ninja suddenly behind her. A force like a sledge-hammer's slammed into the back of the woman's knee, as The Demon's Apprentice's stomp collapsed her leg and pinned it to the bridge. Instantly, she felt his hands – one gripped high on the back of her head, the other cupped hard under her chin in a neck-breaking maneuver. With a gasp of panic, Juri grabbed Haku's wrists, then bent at the waist and twisted sharply, throwing the shinobi over her shoulders flat to the pavement right in front of her – sideways and almost face-to-face.

In that instant their eyes met in a flash of gray and gold; entire libraries of loathing passed between them.

Juri reared and cocked her fist to strike, but Haku's foot snapped like a whip into the side of her head and Lord Hirai's disciple rolled away to recover and gain some distance. Rising from her roll, the woman was met by a flying side-kick straight to her face which she barely got her arms up in time to protect. Still in the air, Haku transitioned smoothly into a pivot kick with his opposite leg; the force of the impact hard into Juri's cheek knocked the woman flat.

Covered up and on guard against what could follow, Juri saw Haku though the shield of her upraised forearms as he leaped high into the air with a languid, inverted somersault, then descended towards her with one hand out and the other coiling back. The young woman's bright eyes went wide as she threw one arm over her chest and pushed off with one leg into a sideways roll.

An instant later would have been too late; Haku landed and struck full force with all his downward momentum. The edge of his palm smashed through the empty air where Juri had been a moment earlier and down into the concrete.

Juri grinned then. _Missed me, you little f-ck! _she thought gleefully. _And I hope you broke your hand!_

But any thoughts she held toward that effect vanished as she saw the cracks race from where Haku's hand had hit.

_Sh-t!_ Juri cursed, went to her pouches and flung a volley of shuriken right from where she lay.

The Demon's Apprentice ducked, deflected some with the flat of his hand but didn't even bother with the rest. For a moment, Juri thought she'd added to his wounds but then saw what he'd done. The missiles he'd ignored had bounced right off his vest, not being able to penetrate through those layers of steel senbon which functioned like armor.

Stricken with a moment of doubt, Juri stared at her prey, but knew down to the core of her being that the relationship had changed – it was predator and prey no longer.

With an acknowledging, lopsided grin, Lord Hirai's student rose to her feet as Zabuza's did the same. Both sized each other up – an age-old calibration of who was hurt worse, and how much fight they had left in them. Both arrived at the same conclusion, that neither would give up or give out.

In this battle only sacrifice would referee; in this battle only death would decide winner and loser.

Juri and Haku both drew calming breaths then began to pace, circling each other slowly, like tomoe in the mist – dark and light opposites; within the dark, light, and within the light, dark.

* * *

_Hi, everyone. Welcome back and thanks for reading. I hope you liked Ch. 17. What do you think about multi-episode fights? It is kind of in-keeping with the anime, but I'm not sure about it for fanfiction._

_Take care ,_

_--Jono'_


	18. Chapter 18

**Juri**

_I guess this is the part of the program where we take a little break, look over what we did to each other and work out a new strategy,_ surmised Juri who, panting for breath, cast a venomous glare at her opponent, Haku, across the few paces that separated them.

_'Miserable little f-cker and his kekkei-genkai,_ the bleached-blond added snidely, grimacing then as she started to pick icicles from her torn flesh and tattered black and camouflage-patterned clothing. Thankfully, years of hard practice had numbed her to pain, otherwise, she realized, she wouldn't even be able to stand right now.

Lord Hirai's disciple used her training with chakra manipulation to slow and thicken the blood around her injuries. Her cheek was swelling up, probably cracked, and she waggled her jaw back and forth gingerly to test it.

_I always thought taking a break right in the middle of a fight was so f-ckin' cheesy when they did it in manga or movies,_ the young woman continued, _but now that I'm here…_

Looking over at Haku's battered face, his torn and heat-scorched clothing, and battle-scarred body, Juri winced at how wrong she'd been to dismiss him. That was her fault for letting jealousy and personal prejudices affect her judgment. She could hardly blame herself for that too much, though. Her master had gone on and on, and ON and ON, about what a _treasure_ Haku was; that he was a link to a nobler past, and carried in his blood the greatness of bygone ages.

_Blah, blah, blah,_ she'd thought, not buying any of it. _What a load of crap; what's the past worth anyway?_

With the benefit of hindsight, Juri could kind of see what the elderly ninja-lord was talking about.

In Haku, she discerned, there was what the young ninja was obliged to be by genetics – a warrior from a clan so feared that their very existence had been made a crime. She could see that heritage shining through in the transformed look in Zabuza's disciple's grey eyes, the athletic ease in his posture and movements, and the calm, conflicted expression on his face.

Conflicted because that part of him was at odds with what he chose to be, in some ways what he'd _rather_ be – gentle, soft-hearted and strange, someone who picks flowers, likes bunny-rabbits, (_bunny rabbits? Oh, GIVE me a break!_) and sometimes dresses like a girl.

Juri's bright eyes again noted the deep, green-colored polish on the teenager's fingernails and still couldn't help but be repulsed.

But surpassing all of that, Haku, The Demon's Apprentice, was just a man, a man who held true to his own tenets and who would never stand by while harm came to his loved ones – those who were precious to him.

_So it was for love after all,_ Juri considered with bitter resentment then wondered just how the hell insights like these could ever occur to her when, really, she couldn't give a flying f-ck.

Hadn't Lord Hirai said something about this…_oh, yeah,_ she remembered, _that when two powerful shinobi of equal stature fight, they share of themselves…communicating without words through the intricate interchange of their life energies. _That was another one of the old man's many cryptic sniglets she hadn't appreciated much at the time.

Though nothing penetrated Juri's belligerent 'game-face' expression, the young woman wondered if Haku, in this quiet respite, could read her to the same degree as she'd read him. The idea made her shiver then recoil in revulsion.

_F-ck you,_ she snarled the thought, in case Haku's bizarre powers somehow also included telepathy. _It's none of your business!_

Of course, recognizing the fugitive ninja's skill, background and motivations, and accepting being thwarted by them were two entirely different things.

_How could this happen?!_ Juri's thoughts smoldered angrily. _Whoever, whatever his grandma and granddad were, how can this skinny, girly little freak take me on with all these powers I got?! It doesn't make sense!_

Haku, if his thoughts simmered as her's did, his face hardly showed it. The ninja looked back at her cautiously, knowing, as she did, that this briefest of truces could end at any moment with little or no warning, and continued to match Juri's measured, circling pace.

The woman frowned. It was springtime-warm again, and parts of her body tingled painfully as they started to thaw_. Turned off the A-C, huh?_ grumbled Juri to herself. _'Mighty big of you, Iceman._

She grunted and suppressed a scowl. _If you want to grind this out, then that's FINE with me. We'll just see who gives first. I'll still show you what real strength is!_

The heavens themselves seemed to agree as Lord Hirai's student glanced up and saw that the fog was starting to lift. Clouds and a bright blue sky, slightly washed and peaked in the early minutes of sunrise were starting to peek through the lightening wisps. In the background she could see flames feeding on the shores of the Land of Waves from where her Dragon Seeds had fallen – errant missiles that had missed their mark earlier.

Still, seeing the evidence of her destructive powers bolstered her. A smile crept over her face and she swelled with pride.

_He f-cked up, letting me catch my breath,_ Juri re-assessed. _I can feel my chakra coming back, not like it was before, but enough to get the job done._

This time, she was not so confident as to ignore some critical realities.

_Haku's got to know from last time that my scroll won't last forever,_ the young woman considered._ My chakra isn't strong enough that I can keep projecting it from my body, so that means I got to close in and take this guy out quick._

Her golden eyes narrowed fiercely. _If Haku hasn't caught on to that yet, the second we go hand-to-hand he'll know for sure 'cause he'll be able to feel it. Close in, I've got the advantage; at a distance, he does. Normally that wouldn't be too good, but in this case,_ Juri allowed herself a grin, _I think I got him…yeah._

_And even if he does get some space, I still got my 'Plan B' as long as I can hit him again before that happens._

Juri, satisfied with her tactics, stopped and gave Haku a stern sort of smile. "Not that this wasn't refreshing and all," she announced in a slow, haughty drawl, "but I'm starting to get bored. What do you say – round three?"

The young ninja raised his black-maned head. "As you wish," he agreed a little too quickly, a little too confidently, to make Juri feel any better.

Juri crouched then shot forward and was met with an instantaneous, biting chill --a penetrating cold that made her body convulse. Haku checked her leading front kick with a quick, lateral stomp above her instep, swept it out with his opposite leg then jumped and spun, slashing across the side of her head with the arcing, outside edge of his foot.

_Damn his speed!_ Juri fumed, rocked from the force of her enemy's kick, but stayed close despite having to weather more blows. _Hit him once; that's all I got to do is HIT HIM ONCE!_

The woman wiped her bloody lip, recovered then came at Haku again more cautiously. With her hands tensed into claws, she jabbed twice then moved to close in, but the ninja read her combination. When she pivoted and threw the cross, Haku blocked then grabbed her at the wrist, straightened her arm and locked it at the elbow. Juri rushed to get ahead of the technique and whipped herself around, pulled and twisted her arm free from the ninja's grip but felt the sharp stings and thudding impacts of two quick wheel kicks, one low and one high, in trade.

Pretending to be stunned and far worse off than she was Juri turned and staggered away, clutching her stomach, and not letting her adversary see the hand signs she made.

Spinning back at Haku vengefully, the woman crossed her clawed hands and tore the air in front of her, unleashing ten lashing coils of burning energy.

Haku's face rose with surprise as he leaped for an opening in the fiery grid-work and managed to twist through it, landing on ready palms. The ninja sprang back up, as elusive as an eel, but the charging Juri seized his arm, her trained fingers clawing deeply into skin and muscle. Now in close, Lord Hirai's apprentice head-butted Haku then gave him a short, hooking palm across his jaw hard enough spin him around. She then pounded the wounded teenager in the breast-bone while her follow up, a closed fist that hit the ninja high in the chest then viciously scraped down the center of his body as she dipped into a kneeling crouch, dropped him to the ground.

_AH! This is even better than I hoped for!_ Juri exulted then rose up.

"Get up, Iceman," she seethed expectantly, tasting victory. "I want to see the look on your face!"

As Haku shuddered and started to crawl to his feet, Juri sucked in a breath to fire her chakra. Dropping into a ready posture, the woman drew both palms to the sides of her hips, raised her knee high into her chest then surged at the weakened ninja. Juri's eyes sought Haku's, she wanted to see his expression when both tiger-palms backed by momentum, years of training, and the power of her swelling chakra, blasted the life from his scrawny, unnaturally-feminine body.

In mid-motion, too committed to stop, what the woman saw instead was the fugitive's face, porcelain and angelic, light with death's-head resolve and the fingers of his right hand fly through a pattern of seals.

_No freakin' WAY!_ Juri's thoughts cried as her palms struck an inches-thick shield of ice so clear she could hardly see it was there. The power behind her blow shattered the ice monolith to powder and white crystals, blinding her for an instant in which Haku vanished.

Before she'd even had time to think another thought, pain shot through Juri suddenly from behind, across her back and up and down her spine. Wheeling around, instinctively drawing her arms around her head and neck as she tried to evade, she came into a fusillade of senbon that sank deeply into her chest, stitched across her midsection and legs, piercing organs, arteries and nerve centers.

One section at a time, her body went lifeless and she flopped to the pavement, mouth open, with blood pooling all around her.

* * *

**Haku**

Standing like a statue with his throwing arm extended, not twenty feet from where Juri lay, Haku expressed a relieved and grateful sigh. The damaged he'd suffered was almost incalculable – far past the point where he could diagnose the extent of his injuries. Suffice it to say that the only things that kept him upright were a carefully controlled stream of chakra…and wishful thinking.

His vision was hazy and his thoughts swam, deeply under the spell of a primal chemistry he knew his body was producing in response to wounds and the stresses of combat.

The ninja drew a calming, necessary breath, drew it deeper, then let it go.

Chakra and body-control techniques were maintaining organ function. Another breath – deep, deeper, let it go.

Chakra and body-control were keeping broken bones from separating. Another breath – deep, deeper, let it go.

Chakra and body-control were sealing up internal bleeding. Another breath – deep, deeper, let it go.

Haku had been in so many battles, but could remember few as tortuous as this. If his control failed, if his will faltered for even a second….

The young shinobi's extended hand hovered, trembling slightly for a moment, while the grimmer part of his psyche presented him with a vision.

The hour was a bit later in the morning upon the uncompleted, as-yet unnamed bridge's virgin concrete. No longer was it Lord Kissohomaru Hirai's student, Juri Chono, who lay there dead but the two ninja from Konohagakure, Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha. Steel spines stuck from their eyes and necks, hearts, livers and lungs, nerve centers, joints, and between vertebrae; the blazing sparks of their young lives, so full of promise, forever darkened.

Blood streamed, bright and glistening, down the vanquished genins' faces, making a pink and red mess of the shorter one's dandelion-yellow hair, and contrasting luridly against the taller one's fair skin.

The eight-weeks-ago Haku straightened his zodiac mask and slightly singed, jade-colored robe then went to insure his beloved Zabuza's victory over the copy-ninja, the wily and tenacious Kakashi Hatake. The bridge-builder would fall soon after, and if the remaining leaf kunoichi, Sakura Haruno, interfered then she would in that instant join her companions in the afterlife.

Life is so much simpler when you remain true to the path; when you shut away distractions. Real shinobi do not mourn their victims or contemplate the meaning of their loss. They don't suffer from kind-hearts, and they DO NOT FALTER OR HESITATE.

_Now,_ something asked Haku intently, finding glory in this redemption from the ninja's greatest humiliation_, was that REALLY so hard?_

Haku blinked and was back from the unalterable past to the uncertain present. The profound sense of dislocation brought him close to throwing up. He wobbled perilously, but remained on his feet.

_A strange sort of victory, _the fugitive thought as he reeled from the storm of conflicted emotions that battled in his head.

Juri had pushed him to his limits, yet his blood was not satisfied. It was as if legions of his lost ancestors were crying out with each pounding heartbeat – _more, more, MORE!_

_Where the hell are those ANBU?!_ they complained._ Were they too thick-headed to figure out where to meet you? Did they oversleep?! Did they fail to notice the fireworks? Do YOU have to go and hunt THEM down?_

Yet, at the same time, having used his art to kill again seemed like a betrayal of all his efforts. Was this ALL a ninja could aspire to do – kill? Accidents and germs killed. Was this what he'd spent all those years training to be: on par with the random and the insignificant?

_You had no other choice,_ the teenager counseled himself, knowing it was true, but not without regret that the entirety of both his and Juri's lives had lead them to this moment. They truly had been opposites.

In the quiet moments during their fight, Haku had sensed from Juri the great, lingering absence of having never known or felt the one thing that had always driven him as far back as he could remember.

He knew now that even if Juri had grown up in a house surrounded by family and friends, showered constantly with kindness and attention, the girl would not have apprehended the reason. Though she might have appreciated the dispositions of those close to her and even felt warmed by them, she would have never been touched or moved. To Juri, 'love' was a word that poets had invented to describe something that didn't exist; or at best, an emotional state that held neither meaning nor transcendent profundity. She'd never been lost in its pursuit, gratified by its attainment, torn by its loss, and never missed or even noticed its absence in her life.

True satisfaction was something she would find elsewhere, in the discipline of self-perfection, in gaining strength, in the acquisition of power. In a world without love there were only predators and prey. Put simply: being a predator was better.

Haku sighed heavily, shaken by the revelations, and wondered for the briefest of moments if Juri had come to understand him as he'd come to understand her.

The teenager took a hobbling step then and turned to head back toward his adopted home -- the Land of Waves. Seeing the flames and black smoke that spread over the sky like a cancer, the fugitive stared in desolation. Sick at heart, the teenager raised his hands, despairing, and let them fall to his sides.

"Iceman!" a harsh, ghastly and familiar voice interrupted. Haku whirled and gaped wide-eyed at Juri who, though pin-cushioned with steel quills and drenched in gory crimson, had risen again like the mythical phoenix.

_Stupid,_ Haku realized at once, _stupid of me not to make sure…_

"I told you before," the woman hissed from where she knelt, making arcane seals with her hands, her face a grotesquery of cold rage, "it's not over!"

The ninja's features wriggled in shock as his hand flashed, quick as lightning, to his quivers but even that was not fast enough. Pain ripped through his insides, arresting him in mid-motion. The senbon tumbled from his slack fingers and hit the ground only a moment before Haku himself did.

* * *

**Juri**

Hate: a surprisingly powerful emotion, even given its storied reputation and history. The woman had called upon it and so had it answered – with the will to push herself up, to ignore the extremities of agony she felt as if they didn't exist, and fix the sum of her focus on one easily-achievable desire – KILL The Demon's Apprentice!

Lord Hirai's spell was still there, the energy it granted her access to still flowed, if only she could again tap into it.

Haku gaped at her, dumbfounded in horror and amazement for a moment, before he stumbled groggily and his hands leaped for his weapons.

Juri glared back defiantly and forced her fingers through a series of hand signs. _Yes,_ she thought, savoring the moment, as her jutsu called out to the poison chakra she'd infused into Haku's body.

The ninja grabbed at his stomach, collapsed limply to the pavement and cried out in anguish – sweet music that brought delight to the young woman's heart.

"Get up!" Juri commanded herself.

In the state she was in, with her life holding on by a thread, such a demand seemed quite impossible, but the satisfaction she drew from Haku's tortured cries spurred her on.

Raising her foot up to plant it flat on The Great Naruto Bridge's tested concrete took long, agonizing seconds.

At last she stood, feeble, shaky, but she stood. She looked over, hoping to see Haku still writhing in pain, but was astonished to find him crouched on his knees, his face distorted by torments, but composed and purposeful.

_Shit!_ the woman marveled. _He's still up…impossible!_

Juri felt the pressure now – who would recover enough to act first?!

Dropping into a deep horse stance, a motion that in itself brought her to new worlds of pain, Lord Hirai's disciple pulled out bloody senbon from her chest, sides and back one after the other then forced her wheezing, gurgling lungs to draw breath, using chakra to force the holes shut. Crossing her arms over her chest, she slowly extended them forward, her hands held in tensed claws. She drew them back by her ears and inhaled, circled them down and tight along her upper chest then exhaled as she pushed them out again.

Juri felt the thrill as a torrent of energy drawn from the earth and heavens surged into her body. Twice more she repeated the exercise, feeling her chakra building each time, then slowly and tensely extended her palms outward. Opening her body to such energies at this point would do it irreparable damage she knew, but that was a trade she was more than willing to make.

Looking back toward her adversary, her eyes stinging from the sweat that poured down her brow, she saw Haku stabbing himself with his own senbon!

_What the f-ck is that!_ Lord Hirai's disciple wondered for moment before she realized the ingeniousness of his counter, but it didn't matter now. It would take far more than acupuncture to save him.

Energy filled her, repairing some of the damage she'd suffered and gluing together for the time being what could not be mended. The steel tips of the remaining senbon that stuck out from her body dropped off and rang against the pavement as her cresting chakra dissolved the rest away. At this moment, and only for a moment, her power was once-again almost limitless. It was time – time at last to strike down The Demon's Apprentice.

In a way, the woman was glad for this -- for all the weasely little cross-dresser had put her through. It was because of him that she'd attained this level; because of him she'd be immortalized in history the greatest ninja ever!

High into the air, Juri leaped, rising like a condor. Though her hands flew through an elaborate series of seals she kept close eye on Haku, remembering vividly how motherf-cking sneaky the bastard could be. At the apex of her flight, the energy she'd summoned began to manifest between her clawed hands – a nebulous sphere that glowed with the power of the living sun and the volcanic heat at the center of the earth.

* * *

**Haku**

Struggling to his feet and barely able to stand, Haku looked up at the dark figure that plunged toward him.

Between her hands flowered a power more daunting and terrible than anything the veteran shinobi had ever seen before. It was beautiful too though he had to admit, a magnificent, unsurpassed sight – a thing of such elemental majesty that he couldn't help but stare awestruck in appreciation.

Juri's face constricted, lips peeled back, eyes narrowed to tense slits, veins buldging, sweat pouring down her forehead at the agony of maintaining this jutsu.

For a moment, Haku wondered if she'd be able to pull it off, or of she'd fail and be consumed by her own creation. Towards him she plummeted, like some pagan goddess of death, her shape growing larger and larger as she approached.

Though Haku hated her with a deep antagonism that encompassed her thoughtlessness, her callousness, her indifference to life in all its forms, and an especial disdain for humanity, the young ninja couldn't at all fault her achievement.

Juri's clawed hands opened toward him, the energy she'd gathered glowing blinding white like a pearl of wisdom resting between the dragon's jaws. All the while, Haku couldn't help himself, and looked up with a beatific smile as the power of Lord Hirai's student washed over the Great Naruto Bridge's cracked landscape, dissolving all in a flood of light.

* * *

**The Land of Waves**

The morning that broke over the Land of Waves was filled with cruel surprises. Practically the whole village had been engulfed in dense fog since late the previous night, and then, just as the mist was beginning to lift…fire! Alarms rang and calls went up for the volunteer fire-fighters to assemble and head down to the docks where one of the moored boats had suddenly and inexplicably erupted in flames. Further toward the new construction, buildings blazed; broad tongues of hellish orange and red lapped the sky, sending up billows of black smoke that stained the thin haze that remained.

But all those watching, whether stirred by the emergency or just happening to step out onto the streets to begin their days, were brought up short by a far stranger spectacle: this morning, TWO suns rose with the dawn.

One was welcome and expected -- the heavenly body that warmed the earth with life-giving radiance. The other was just as bright, painful if you looked right at it, but strange…baleful, and rose not from the far-distant horizon but from the center span of The Great Naruto Bridge!

Some were only puzzled by the sight's haunting peculiarity while others were struck to the cores of their being.

Over the course of several, silent seconds, the second ball swelled then burst in a flash of white.

From a distance it seemed that the mist and water receded slowly from the light but then the earth trembled and a shockwave ripped through the village, knocking startled onlookers flat and shattering windows with a thunderous and terrifying boom. Walls canted away from the blast; roofs sheared loose of their moorings. The citizens of Wave Country huddled in fearful awe as if in the divine presence, praying for their lives and wondering if they were witness to the annunciation of the end of the world.

* * *

Chuuya Tezuka, running full tilt down the shoreline road, skidded to a stop then stared as the sky brightened suddenly. Looking up, his mouth dropped open at the sight of the bright, solid-looking ball of lurid orange and white that rose in the distance ahead. 

The earth shuddered violently under his feet and the boy toppled over. Not knowing quite what to do, he hugged his arms around his head then cringed as a great roar and blast of wind bowed the trees and sent a torrent of leaves, branches and grit rushing over him.

* * *

Mari Tezuka, wearing only pajamas and picking her way barefooted through the alarmed, awakening village, saw a blinding flash an instant before she was blasted her off her feet. The rickety wood-planked walls of the buildings around her trembled and cracked, windows shattered explosively in their frames, and corrugated metal roofs tore and peeled from rooftops. 

Dazed when she came-to, with the blurry world slowly resolving into focus, the girl pressed a hand to her forehead then tried to crawl shakily to her feet.

Without a second look, Mari knew from where the explosion had come and fell back to her knees.

_Haku…_the thought came, occupying the entirety of her mind with its significance.

* * *

Aya Sakamoto startled and yelped with surprise at the horrendous boom, then stumbled as the shabby hotel room lurched suddenly – its floor swayed and its walls canted and creaked, sending cracks racing through painted plaster, while various objects slid off tables and dressers and went crashing to the floor. 

After the building had stopped moving and it seemed that it was not going to collapse, the mist-ninja looked up stunned at her patients, her friends and team-mates, Eiji and Yukimasa who sat up from their cots and stared at her then at each other, eyes wide with shock.

As one, the three ninjas' ashen faces turned to the east.

Tears filled Aya's young, dark eyes. Her slender shoulders shook as she started to cry; the kunoichi clutched her hands together, chin buried tightly into her chest.

"It's ok, Aya," offered Eiji with rare tenderness, but though his voice was sure his eyes swam uncertainly. "Just a big noise, that's all," the youngest of the ANBU improvised. "It doesn't mean anything's happened to the Chief."

Yukimasa, whose wired jaw still rendered him unable to speak, stared through the wall toward The Great Naruto Bridge as they all hoped beyond hope that somehow everything would turn out alright.

'Masa grunted sharply, drawing his teammates' attentions, whereupon he grunted again more insistantly and canted his head urgently toward the door.

The heavily-bandaged Eiji blinked, wet his lips, then translated. "He's right, Aya," the young ANBU declared. "Go on, we'll be ok."

The mist-ninja's firm suggestion seemed to break the spell that held Aya captive. She nodded curtly with resolve, formed her fingers into a seal, then vanished.

* * *

**Juri**

_A dream…warm, floating._

Juri's breath caught and her eyes popped wide open to behold a world of blurry light and dark. Blond hair swirled over her face. The girl gagged sharply, sending out a flurry of bubbles.

_Underwater,_ she realized at once, _sinking…drowning!_

Juri struggled in wild, desperate alarm for a moment before calmer, more constructive thoughts prevailed. First – she unfastened her belt and let her supply of kunai knives and shuriken drop away in a straight line to the sea floor. Second – ditch the boots. In a moment, Lord Hirai's student had shed them. Third – follow the bubbles!

By this point, her lungs burned from the effort. Up above, high above, the departing bubbles from her last breath played against a veil of dancing lights. The girl slowly exhaled what little air remained, knowing it would extend her breath a precious moment more, then held it out as she streamlined her body and swam upward with smooth strokes of her powerful arms.

"Ah!" she gasped as her head broke the surface then coughed raggedly for breath, bobbing up and down amidst the waves.

All around her, the middle spans of The Great Naruto Bridge lay in ruins. Water swirled in angry torrents around broken columns, concrete beams, and planar sections of roadway that stuck up from the waves, their remains still settling and shifting with the currents. Bright beams of sunlight fell in flickering, slanted, solid-looking shafts through thin, wind-stirred veils of smoke and cloud.

Juri looked across the distance to where the remainders of the bridge towered over her, about a hundred feet away on either side. Steel reinforcing bars stuck like twisted wires from sundered beams; bits of broken concrete dripped from the jagged edges, tumbled through the air then disappeared into the sea with dramatic, splashing plops.

_That's it. It's done now for sure,_ she thought with broad smile and a rush of relieved, giddy euphoria. _Yeah, Iceman, you were tougher than I thought, a LOT tougher, but in the end…just another piece of crap who crossed me._

Though exhausted far more then she'd ever been before, with lingering, painful wounds, a sense of accomplishment restored Lord Hirai's weary disciple. The woman relished the sensation of taking a deep, relaxed breath of the warm, fresh, sea air then floated onto her back to rest.

After she'd recovered somewhat, Juri attuned her chakra then carefully pushed herself up and stood upright atop the waves. The way back was not easy. The surf was choppy, and her chakra was unbalanced from all the exertion which made it hard to adjust to the rippling, constantly-changing surface.

One wobbly step at time, Juri slouched toward the remains of the closest column that stuck up from the water then leaped to its ragged top. Pausing there for a minute to gather herself for the effort, the girl then jumped to the top of the next broken column and then the next until finally she leaped up to the portion of the bridge that was still intact.

Juri landed in a crouch, rose then stood proudly at the precipice with fists braced on her hips. A smile crept across her face as she surveyed the devastation. _Yeah,_ she said to herself and nodded, _THAT'S wassup!_

The girl turned away from the edge, toward the smoky haze that awaited her beyond the portals at the end of the bridge. After a couple of paces, her amber eyes rose for a moment in distress then settled as she shook her head dismissively. At last, though, Juri gave in and turned back to have a look at what had bothered her.

There at the edge of the bridge's pavement, water glistened. There were, as she feared, not one but two sets of footsteps leading away.

Juri's mouth fell open as the simple arithmetic slammed through her mind and she reeled. _When?! _she wondered miserably. _How?! It HAD to be him, not a substitution, not gen-jutsu, not an ice-clone. He looked right, the f-ck, AT me! He was…smiling._

Up and down the coastline, the fires had abated but plumes of grey smoke and dust still drifted. The shoreline was alive with urgent shouts.

Staggering along, Juri put a hand to her head and looked for any sign of her nemesis. Immediately before her, there materialized something strange, taking shape literally from thin air. Upward in a straight line it grew then extended out at the top and bottom until it filled in and defined a tall, rectangular plane that framed her own puzzled, battered and battle-wearied expression.

As she slowly raised her head she noticed its many neighbors coalescing all around and above her to form, in their totality, a towering, crystalline pagoda, within which she found herself imprisoned.

Juri spat tiredly. "So," the woman offered with surprising composure, then turned to face Haku who stood right there just a few paces behind her. "Is this what I think it is?"

The sight of The Demons' Apprentice, so different from when they'd started this fight raised the flicker of a smile to her dry, split lips. The young fugitive's slender, graceful body, so badly beaten, torn and bloody, with burns glistening red and black reminded the girl of a movie she'd seen that had zombies in it.

Twin trails of dried blood streaked under Haku's swollen nose and across his thin lips. The ninja's mane of lustrous, long black hair was singed now and matted with sweat and sea-water. His fair-featured school-girl's face was marked with cuts and discolored with bruises. The blue tunic he had worn at the onset was now long gone, leaving him with a tan vest that housed his scores of senbon but was torn almost completely off on one side where five closely-spaced claw marks trailed vivid crimson down the side of his heaving, pale flank.

But even with all of that, considered Juri scornfully, the girly little f-cker STILL somehow seems elegant.

Without answering her question, Haku stepped back toward one of the shimmering mirrors and vanished into it like an illusionist's magic trick.

Juri knew her foe well enough to know that this was no trick.

The mirrored planes all flashed white, and Juri's images were replaced by Haku's. Between every finger on the ninja's closed fists, senbon bristled like claws – a dire premonition of things to come.

"And now," Haku's reflections informed her calmly as the air began to chill, "we'll begin."

* * *

_Thanks for reading_

_--Jono'_

_In the interest of full disclosure, I lifted that bit about the pearl of wisdom in the dragon's jaws from the book, The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. Great book and great author._


	19. Chapter 19

**Haku**

Zabuza's apprentice studied his captured quarry, Juri Chono, from all around and above the fearsome young woman who stood now imprisoned by the shimmering panes of his Demonic Ice Mirrors – the ultimate expression of the fugitive ninja's kekkei-genkai.

The woman revolved slowly, frowning but nodding her head in begrudging acceptance of this unpleasant new development, with no greater anxiety than if she were checking out a prospective new apartment.

_She's taking it well,_ mused Haku, disappointed but not surprised.

Half of this technique's value was psychological – the opponent suddenly finds themselves trapped within a towering polyhedron of ice, seemingly surrounded by an omnipresent and perhaps omnipotent adversary. Being that Juri had just expended a truly stupendous amount of energy in a jutsu that should have destroyed anyone she used it on, Haku had hoped for better, but then again, at this point the young woman's tenacity and resolve could hardly be disputed.

Practically speaking, Haku knew using this jutsu was a risk. His internal energies waned, much of it being spent on repairing and maintaining his battered body, and this extension of his kekkei-genkai used a lot of it. And whether his principal weapons, senbon throwing-spines he normally used in conjunction with this jutsu, would even be effective came and went with the rising and falling of Juri's monstrous chakra.

However, Haku's Ice Mirrors certainly gave him advantages, and temporarily imposed upon this world the rules of another, where Zabuza's apprentice could exist in multiple places at once, move at the speed of thought, inhabit solid objects and look down at his enemies with distributed, panoptic vision. It was all very, very impressive, yet, as one Naruto Uzumaki had taught Haku the hard way just a few weeks ago, this ability didn't make him nearly as secure as he might think.

The ends of Juri's cracked lips twitched then rose into a smile as she brushed ribbons of wet, bleached-blond hair off her tan face, then charged the ninja's walls.

Haku at once directed himself through his mirrors, appearing and disappearing through them at will, and let loose with waves of senbon. The woman hissed as the spines pierced her, but she'd already braced herself for that. Her chin was tucked tight into her chest, arms held high to guard her neck and face. Juri spun as she moved too, to deny her enemy a clear shot at her vital areas. Arriving at one of the mirrored planes, the woman snapped into a lunging stance and her whole coiled body released into a single, titanic blow.

The crystalline pane wobbled perceptibly from the force but held fast and Juri staggered away, shaking her hand and grimacing. All the while though, she made sure to keep moving; huddled behind upraised arms.

Haku waited patiently for an opening, then watched as the senbon he'd hit her with slowly extrude from her body and clatter to the Great Naruto Bridge's concrete pavement.

_Her chakra's still that strong?_ the ninja marveled then narrowed his gaze.

_That's been the whole problem all along – her chakra. As long as she has that inexhaustible resource to draw upon, I'll never be able to defeat her._

The young fugitive remembered again the scrolls Juri had swallowed that carried inscribed upon them her master, Lord Hirai's, powerful chiromancy – Tao magic that had enabled the old ninja lord's student to battle the ANBU captain, Toru Yamashite, before, and him now with powers that seemed almost god-like.

_That's it then,_ Haku determined_, that's what I'll have to do – attack her chakra._ Without even thinking about it explicitly, the ninja knew it would be incredibly dangerous…but letting her wear him down, that would be fatal.

With his weapons clutched in either hand, Haku attacked. Moving faster than the eye could follow, he leaped from the protective world of his Ice Mirrors, landed behind Juri and pounded a senbon into the chakra center at the base of her spine. The woman recoiled in surprise, shocked by the sudden pain, then whirled reflexively. Haku ducked her slashing, back-handed tiger-claw, popped up then blocked the woman's oncoming opposite hand while stabbing deep into the nerve cluster below her collar bone close to where Juri's left arm articulated.

Knowing he was in-close and that he had to stay on the offensive, Haku tiger-palmed HER in the face with his reverse hand then, as she stumbled back, leaped into a crouch almost between her feet and sent his right-lead blasting into her stomach. The gratification the ninja felt made him grin, having gotten the better of her with the element of surprise and using the woman's own techniques against her, but knew better than to milk it too long. Immediately, Haku rolled away and leaped for sanctuary.

He'd just vanished again behind the plane of one of his Ice Mirrors when a massive explosion burst upon its surface, gradually burned its way through the center and shattered what remained with a torrent of fire and ice. Undulant curtains of blinding red and orange rolled over the shimmering walls of the rest of the glass-like panes, making the towering polyhedron light up from the inside like a flame-filled lantern.

Haku gasped in amazement. Only one other force had he ever encountered with the power to destroy one of his mirrors outright. And then too, he realized, Juri must be insane to use a ninja art like her Dragon Seed jutsu so close in.

The flames settled, flashed with one last violent paroxysm then flickered out, and Haku could see again. Juri stood, badly burned, back hunched, bestial eyes radiating hatred as she watched the remaining mirrors readjust their spacing to make up for the one that was missing. The young woman grit her teeth, cast her gaze around furtively, reached with a palsied hand for the senbon that stuck from her upper chest then thought better of it, assuming, quite correctly, that Haku would attack again immediately the moment she tried.

Haku noted, as a measure of progress, that these senbon had stuck fast. The girl's chakra no longer flowed strongly enough to eject them. Not only that, but as spectacular as her Dragon Seed jutsu had been, it was weaker now than the last time she'd used it. The fugitive ninja's plan was succeeding -- just as he'd used his knowledge of the body to fend off Juri's 'poison-hand' attacks, so was he now shutting down the conduits within her body that allowed the massive chakra she summoned to flow. Even if she was able to pull those senbon out, it wouldn't matter. The damage was done.

Unfortunately, Juri now knew his plan, and that made matters much more complicated. Nonetheless, this was the only way to prevail, and Zabuza's student was determined to see it through.

Flashing like a blur from mirror to mirror, Haku peppered the woman with senbon then dropped straight down on top of her, landing on her back and plunging a senbon into the nerve center high on the other side of her chest. Juri grunted sharply from the impact, then thrashed ferociously until Haku flew off, soared up into his Ice Mirrors and vanished into their gleaming surfaces. Again Juri's fingers flew through seals then sent another Dragon Seed rocketing after him. The ball of blazing light struck the mirror The Demon's Apprentice had entered a moment earlier and exploded with an incendiary flash and furnace-blast of heat which blew apart the upper third. The lower portion slowly cracked and splintered, held together for a moment then finally split apart and came crashing down.

_That's it,_ Haku realized, making one-handed seals. _It's working._

Baying with pain and frustration, Juri clenched her fists and glared into the surrounding ice-mirrors as they again re-spaced themselves. "COME ON!" she roared at The Demon's Apprentice's taunting, endless reflections, not in desperation, but fury, "BRING IT!"

Haku obliged her. All the mirrors flashed white and from each and every one a Haku sprang at the woman in a blur of motion, with senbon clutched in tight fists. Juri blocked two that attacked from above, stabbing at her face; the woman parried one's oncoming blow over her head and smashed his rib-cage with a concrete-shattering tiger-claw, then whirled in an evasive series of butterfly-palm blocks before transitioning into a storm of hammering blocks and counters while the ninjas she struck burst into multiple cascades of water.

Hakus flew and leaped all around her, dissolving into a singular blur of motion like zebras running in a herd. Steel spines lashed like bear claws across Juri's back and arms, cutting cloth and skin, and leaving vivid trails of blood. Kicks thudded off the woman's sinewy forearms, slammed hard across her shoulder-blades and tire-hard midsection, drawing gasps of grunting breath. Fired by anger, Lord Hirai's disciple switched smoothly between defense and offense, maneuvering her enemies into weaker positions then finishing them with quick, brutal strikes with fists, tiger-palms and elbows. Even her blocks were lethal; forceful enough to shatter bones!

Drenched from her swim in the sea and the water-clones she'd dispatched, Juri admirably kept focus as the Hakus pressed their attacks. Senbon flashed like daggers towards the woman's face, but missed by fractions of inches as she evaded. Her tiger-claws thundered across jaws, into ribs and locked elbows, tore into necks and eyes. Closing quickly with one of the Hakus, she seized his long hair then trapped his head between her forearms, fingers overlapped behind his head. Juri twisted sharply, breaking that one's neck and throwing his body into the paths of two others. The vanquished clone burst into a watery spray as the next Haku shot a kick low into Juri's stomach; the woman smashed the foot down and surged forward, blocking another's downward stab with one arm while punching the first hard and straight below the nose with the other. That one too popped like a water-balloon while the other leaped away, only to rejoin the fight with two more.

_Amazing! _the real Haku considered, deeply impressed. _I've never seen anyone master the Tiger Boxing system the way she has._

Juri's golden eyes raced as they tried to track the ninjas' movements. Her expression seemed encouraged by how many clones she'd destroyed, yet dismayed at how many remained.

Again a feeling of regret came over Haku, that killing her would be the same as destroying a work of art, taking into account all that the young woman had accomplished. Thankfully, this time, the feeling passed as he slipped Juri's lightning-fast back-fist then sidestepped as she dropped into a 'tiger-tail' kick meant to break his femur. Haku's deft fingers worked his senbon into new grips – like straight, steel claws in his left; bunched together like a three-pronged, double-ended dagger in his right. The ninja punched with his senbon-fist, taking Juri a little by surprise with his speed and leaving three deep scratches across her cheek.

Juri whirled around, fist spinning, to cover her retreat. For a few moments, the woman and Haku's water-clones danced to control distance, then Juri put her hands together for a jutsu.

Haku scowled determinedly and put a stop to it with a senbon sent hurtling at her forehead, but she flinched at the last moment and the missile only grazed her. The woman rolled away as a trio of clones closed on her, then launched herself into a spinning jump right at Haku.

"It's you, right," she seethed knowingly, "the real one!"

Having caught the scent of real blood, Juri exploded at Zabuza's student with a relentless flurry of punches, content to ignore the blows she weathered from mere clones. Haku evaded, passing and parrying, but Juri had the advantage of being the one moving forward, and the pavement was slippery from water, blood and ice.

Just as Haku seemed off-balance, Juri spun unexpectedly, completely around, swiping a tiger-claw in a wide, deadly arc that ripped through four of the ninja's duplicates.

"Oh, no-no!" she advised as she returned her unkind attentions to the real Haku and took up the attack from where she'd left off. "I didn't forget about them."

Again and again, her furious blows slashed and pounded at Haku. The ninja managed to slip a straight tiger-claw, but Juri's whipping forearm buckled his defense and slammed into the side of his head, staggering him.

Apparently wary this time of big, telegraphed or time-consuming maneuvers, Juri quickly closed in to finish him off but was stuck hard and unexpectedly from above. A water-clone Haku had held in reserve dropped down from the ice-mirror directly above her and spiked the point of his senbon down into the chakra center at the crown of her head.

Juri's face went ashen with shock. As she froze, Haku dipped low and hammer-fisted his trio of senbon into the chakra center in the woman's right inner-thigh, then dropped and rolled between her legs, leaving Lord Hirai's apprentice standing there, stunned and quivering from her wounds' chakra-disrupting effects.

Behind her, Haku came to his feet almost completely exhausted; his muscles burned and his breath heaved in his chest, but he couldn't quit…not just yet.

_You're close! _the ninja encouraged himself. _One more move and you can rest!_

Gritting his teeth, a hard look came over the ninja's youthful face as he leaped then vanished again into his Demonic Ice Mirrors. Appearing that instant from another mirror up high and to Juri's left, Haku sprang straight at her with his fist coiled to strike – the same fist that held three senbon clutched tightly between his fingers like claws; three steel spines which, in one moment more, would be driven deep into Juri's skull.

The world vanished – the bridge, the half-dozen remaining clones, the ice-mirrors and the glimpses of cerulean sky beyond, everything vanished, collapsing into the singularity of an intense focus that held room for only one thing: the last look on the face of Juri Chono, Lord Kissohomaru Hirai's secret disciple, and master of the Tiger-Fist, as the razor points of Haku's senbon homed in for the kill.

In that instant, the blond turned to him; her eyes were not amber and feral but wide, innocent and sapphire blue. Naruto Uzumaki's mouth opened in betrayed surprise, the whisker-like marks on his cheeks widening.

_STUPID!_ Haku thought in that instant, knowing he'd lost his intensity for a fraction of a second…and that he was going to die for it; that in the end it was not just Juri's skill, but his own soft-heart that had killed him.

The false Naruto grinned cruelly as his rear arm arced upward in a tiger-claw that blocked Haku's strike in mid-flight then seized his wrist; the leaf-ninja's forward hand flashed, grabbing a handful of his attacker's waistband and raising him high into the air. With a smooth, calculated movement, the orange-clad boy twisted sharply and drove Haku head-first, straight down into the unforgiving pavement of the bridge that bore the blond genin's name; all the water clones bursting into watery nothingness when Zabuza's apprentice hit.

Haku's world ended then and there with a sharp, percussive crack, in which everything went black.

* * *

A bleak void filled with dizzying stars and flashes of lusterless color -- once again, the afterlife, or so Haku assumed.

Much to his surprise, the ninja's eyes fluttered open. Nausea gripped his body and his limbs quaked uncontrollably. The top of the teenager's head felt sticky and hot, and throbbed painfully with every pulsing heartbeat. His back informed him that he rested pancake-flat on cold, hard concrete, but that was the one sensation he _didn't_ find objectionable. High above him, Haku saw his Demonic Ice Mirrors hover in blurry haze. It all seemed so strange because it felt like he'd been out for hours, but maybe it was only instants.

Juri was still close by; that he could tell. As intimately as the ninja knew her energy now, he could sense that even in his present condition. A breath rattled that was not his. It rattled and wheezed until Haku recognized it as laughter.

"You really," the laughter began in a soft, pitiful crackle that trailed away feebly like a dying breeze. "You really are an idiot, Iceman," Juri finally finished from somewhere outside Haku's field of vision. If the young man didn't know for sure it was her, he would have thought the voice belonged to someone else. "You know that, right?"

Haku blinked slowly, his breath frothing, wet his lips and remained still for he could do nothing else. "Yes," he agreed quietly, as best as he was able to.

"No, oh-no," the young woman continued, "he's never gonna fall for THAT old gen-jutsu trick, right, the transformation jutsu, not twice in one day. That's literally what I was thinking."

The ninja winced and found stiff movement returning to his tingling fingers. Slowly, Haku struggled, failed twice, then managed at last to flop onto his side. A gruesome, weary smile came over his battered, bloody face as Juri came into view. "And you look so intelligent," he offered back with uncharacteristic churlishness, "with that senbon sticking out of your dome."

Juri laughed from where she knelt, seemingly as unable to move as he was. "I got to admit, that was a good plan," the fearsome woman gurgled, "shut down my chakra network with a series of strikes." Lord Hirai's disciple spared Haku a glance then shrugged her brawny shoulders. "If I'd have known how much f-cking SH-T you were gonna put me through, I…I might not have showed up. But, then again," she went on with a ghastly, bloodstained smile, "I really would have missed out on a good time. You almost have my respect…almost."

Juri cocked her head from side to side, a gesture made comical in a way because of the steel spine that jutted, antenna-like, from the top of her skull, then pushed her way again to her feet. Dizzy once she got there, she swayed for a moment then jerked the offending senbon from her head, tailbone, upper chest, and leg free and flung them aside. Staring down at Haku, she gave him a satisfied grin. "Any last words, 'little brother'?"

Haku rocked up slowly to his hands and knees then shook his head. His Ice Mirrors, lacking chakra to maintain them, wobbled in space then fell – straight down at first with a jarring 'thud' when they hit, then outward like so many dominoes.

Haku grinned back at the girl, his face half-masked in blood, then playfully pointed upward. Juri's brow narrowed; she looked up then jumped back in alarm as the highest Mirrors, blocks of ice that weighed hundreds of pounds, crashed down, missing her by an inch.

The woman's startled eyes went wide; she staggered backward just as Haku vaulted over the icy fragments and his flying punch slammed hard into her face, sending forth an eruptive stream of spit, blood and broken teeth from Juri's impact-twisted mouth. With head down and legs pushing him forward over and through a jigsaw landscape of shattered ice, Haku punched away in blind, wild abandon -- no technique, no thought to accuracy just: left! Right! Left! Right! Left! Right! feeling the shock of impact after impact through his fists. Springing into the air then in an iron-butterfly kick, The Demon's Apprentice shot the ball of his foot straight into the young woman's stomach, then chest, then face, alternating left and right as he continued to rise.

Juri, shaken by the intensity of Haku's surprise assault, staggered drunkenly, eyes lit by only the faintest flicker of cognizance.

The ninja landed and willed himself on, but his body did not comply. It was as if gravity, moved perhaps by sympathy toward his cause, had been willing to let the rules slide for a moment, but that moment had just passed. Haku's limbs felt leaden now and inert; his vision blurred.

Juri, only a few paces away, recovered and grew aware of him once more. Her eyes rolled for a bit then settled, and she stumbled madly toward him, hand pulled back by her ear in a tiger-claw. Swinging with a heavy, labored effort, Juri's blow fell short and she crashed into Haku whose legs refused to sidestep just as his arms refused to block.

The fugitive fired his elbow, targeting under the woman's chin. Though it missed, the uppercut gave him a little separation. Juri grabbed at him, catching what was left of his vest, and hauled him back.

Around and around they spun until Haku twisted and shook himself free, leaving Juri with a fistful of ragged, soggy, sweat and blood-soaked clothing which she flung down at the pavement with a raspy snarl in a disgusted, contemptuous gesture. Again they closed and again traded blows that seemed to take as much out of them to throw as they did to take. Haku tried to back her off with a simple heel-thrust kick, but it was delivered too slow and too late and Juri seized hold of him.

The young fugitive's efforts to free himself failed as Juri latched on and instinctively took a bear-hug grip – over one arm and under another, with her face tucked down and out of reach. Like drunken revelers the two seemed to dance, one leading for awhile, then the other, each maneuvering for a better position, trying to unbalance the other but always canceling each other out and holding each other up. In the end, Juri's superior strength prevailed – she cinched her hold, dropped her stance and twisted until Haku wobbled and she threw him down, landing with all her body-weight into the ninja's chest.

A breathless and barely-conscious Haku looked dazedly into Juri's eyes, eyes as dull as his, then startled as they suddenly came alive with deadly purpose. Juri grinned, flopped to one side for a moment then pounced right back and stabbed Haku in the chest with one of the dozens of senbon that littered the battlefield.

The ninja howled in fresh agony as the spine pierced him; he could feel the queasy sensation of the weapon's razor point as it scraped down his ribs. Haku grabbed Juri's wrist as she pulled it out to stab him again. The woman hissed, her face so close to his, with gapped-teeth clenched, sweat and blood pouring, amber eyes bulging from the effort as the slender, fugitive ninja struggled equally to resist her. At last, Haku pulled her wrist sharply to the side, pushed off from one braced foot, rolled the woman off and kicked her away.

Haku pushed his way up unsteadily to his feet, his vision sparkling in dire warning. Juri was already standing, her frustration taking on new life in her belligerent face. Tossing back her mane of singed and drowned, crimson-drenched hair, the woman roared at him – a blond dragon's savage face behind a matched pair of upraised middle-fingers. Her hands closed together then to form hand-seals.

_Wait…should she be able to do that?_ Haku wondered groggily, having shut down a number of major chakra points throughout her body. But it probably didn't matter. The energy she was using before had been enough to destroy buildings, maybe even entire civilizations, how much did she really need now just to kill one person?

As a ball of fire materialized between the woman's clawed fingers, blazing brightly, Haku felt his legs start to give out and he stumbled back.

_How could I?_ he thought in desperate sadness. _How could I fail again?_

Haku's vision narrowed to a tunnel with Juri at its center; the very last of his ebbing chakra gushed from his body.

The woman's golden eyes lit with shock as a blur passed through her – a streak of grey and white as it approached, then crimson red when it departed. Her body rocked, shook and twitched like a poorly-operated marionette. At last, Juri's head fell back and her tensed hands parted, letting her Dragon Seed go winding upwards into the air, around and around, sizzling into space like a rogue firework.

Haku felt a sensation like falling, but it seemed far too slow, then a gentle little bounce as he hit the pavement. Lying there, he looked up into the bright blue sky with everything so strangely peaceful at long last.

* * *

**Mari**

With the village having been rocked by an explosion and everyone up and running around to try and find out what had happened, it was hard to keep her ambitious pace. Dressed only in pajamas and now a pair of stolen work boots, Mari rushed through city streets she barely recognized anymore. A massive demolition and construction effort over the last several weeks had already transformed a huge section of the run-down village she'd grown up in, but now, with debris scattered everywhere, and the ways crammed with citizens and strangers, it was as if she found herself in a whole different country.

_Haku…please, oh, please be alright!_ the girl thought anxiously as her thick, knobby soles crunched over loose shingles, torn boards and bits of broken glass.

The last time she'd seen him, the boy had as much as kissed her goodbye, with that stupid 'I'm resolved to my fate, I gotta do what I gotta do' attitude that men get sometimes.

_Stupid bastards, ALL of them!_ Mari fumed and tried to go faster, but you could only go so fast wearing boots that were several sizes too big, and without socks either!

Onward toward the bridge, Mari bulled her way through clots of anxious onlookers and then past piles of smoldering rubble. Various well-meaning Samaritans tried to block her passage, warn her away or 'help' her to safety but she wrestled them off or ran – ran away from them with her ridiculous clown-shoe boots rattling and rubbing against her little feet.

Everything cleared out the closer she came to the bridge until there was not a soul in sight. Passing under the portals, Mari rushed as fast as she could. Immediately she knew her instincts had been right; that this place, the Great Naruto Bridge, had been Haku's destination and the site of a battle like no other…not even the previous one. Everywhere she looked the landscape had been either touched or transformed: bits of rubble and ash littered the pavement; iron lampposts had been melted into globs of slag or were charred and bent like matchsticks, but that was nothing. Way up ahead, the entire middle portion of the bridge was gone!

_Could a ninja's jutsu really do something like that?_ she wondered and hoped, hoped, hoped it had been Haku's, but somehow doubted it. It didn't seem like his style.

Pressing forward, the girl's dark eyes settled on a mysterious shape that lay just ahead, a strange, spiny form like a crimson sea urchin with a solitary red-haired figure at its center. As Mari crept closer she saw it was a woman, a body hanging lifeless having been transfixed by a dozen lances formed entirely of ice, and not red-haired but blond stained and matted with blood.

Mari trembled, frozen in horror at the sight, and she almost didn't recognize her as that girl, Juri, from before. The woman's muscular arms hung back from her body at unnatural angles like some hideous, long-abandoned scarecrow, while her gold-colored eyes stared vacant and unblinking at the sun. From the lances' sparkling shafts dripped a thin mixture of blood and ice melt.

Mari blinked and forced herself to turn away, then, looking up, saw Haku who laid on the pavement a dozen paces away and so badly beaten he was hardly recognizable either. Running as fast as she could, she then stopped and knelt next to the fallen teenager.

The girl could hardly speak. Only after a few moments did she notice the ninja's scarred chest rise and fall faintly with breath and she dared to touch his shoulder then lay her fingers along his cool, bruised and blood-crusted cheek.

Haku's grey eyes opened and slowly fell towards her. He chuckled tiredly and grinned. "Not…another trick, is it?" he rasped almost incomprehensibly then lifted his hand toward her worried face. "Because, that'd make it…three times."

Mari shook her head, not understanding, and took his hand in hers. Tears welled in her eyes as her lips began to tremble.

"Come on," the ninja offered in a plaintive whisper. "I don't look THAT bad, do I?" The girl's silence and horrified expression was answer enough. "I see…my fault," Haku offered regretfully, "my fault for asking."

The two gazed into each others eyes, neither knowing what to say. A strange, soft crackling sound filled the air, and Mari looked up.

"What is it?" asked Haku, his weary voice rising in concern.

"That girl…Juri," answered Mari as she wiped her face with a sleeve. "She's…she's --."

The battered young ninja scowled, his expression souring with disbelief. "Alive?"

Mari shook her head. "Smoking."

With each movement agonizing, Haku, with Mari's help, turned over to look. Wispy fumes rippled in waves from Juri's skewered body which twitched slightly and started to shrink. Her skin wrinkled like a dried fruit then cracked apart after only a few moments. The icy scaffolding that held her up shifted and the whole works collapsed into a twisted heap, with nothing remaining of Juri but a pile of dust.

With renewed urgency Haku gave forth a pained grunt and, to Mari's total amazement, pushed himself to his feet.

The girl stared at him. _How can he even move?_ she wondered, recognizing a laundry list of injuries from the various bloody accidents and intense brawls her brothers sometimes got into, only much, MUCH worse.

Haku was breathing hard, the features of his feminine face quivering tensely.

Mari followed his gaze and saw a figure appear behind the wreckage of Juri's makeshift bier. She then shielded her eyes from a flash of reflected sunlight as a large man came forward; his thick-fingered hands pressed together to form a seal.

The newcomer's multi-pocketed vest, worn over fatigues, bulged with contents and had been reinforced and patched with duct tape in places, while his gray, black and white camouflage pants were tucked into well-worn black boots. Black, thick-framed, thick-lensed glasses rested on his bristly, unshaven face.

The girl's breath stopped as she recognized the ANBU's leader. Haku backed her away, keeping himself between Mari and the newcomer.

The big mist-ninja delivered to Zabuza's disciple a philosophical smile. "You know something, Haku," he observed in an abstract voice, then stooped carefully to set two metal canisters down near Juri Chono's mortal remains, "I can hardly remember a time when I wasn't looking for you. But, I guess I've found you now." The ANBU's brow lifted expressively. "Haven't I?"

* * *

**Toru**

The ANBU pack-leader's hands clapped together to form a hand-sign. There was no way he was going to let The Demon's Apprentice escape this time. Immediately, a ghostly, opaque fog rose up behind him in a great wave then erupted forth. The girl accompanying the fugitive, Mari Tezuka, jumped, stifling a shout, as the walls of mist circled around and over her and Haku, shutting out the sun while sealing them and the lone mist-ninja within. It sure was a shame she had to show up when she did.

"Nice fight, by the way," Toru commented dryly. "Lots of back and forth action, a few surprises," the man continued then shrugged ambivalently, "I give it about a seven. Actually destroying the bridge seemed a bit excessive, but maybe that's just me."

That part wasn't quite true. All during their fight, Toru had had watched from closer by then either combatant would have believed possible, and almost lost his own life in the process! The whole see-saw battle only reinforced in his mind that he'd made the right decision to let them whale on each other, then confront the victor; both were vastly more powerful and clever even than his own pessimistic estimations.

Looking now at Haku now though, standing there shirtless and bloody, shoulders hanging, eyes swimming, and skin even paler than usual, the boy looked barely alive.

Haku stared back at him while Mari fumed, fists clenched, hot with anger. "You miserable, fat, ugly, stupid ANBU BASTARD!" she screamed shrilly, came around from behind Haku and gestured wildly at the man. "All this time you've been waiting, like some f-cking vulture; waiting to pick up the scraps!? COWARD!"

Toru couldn't help but grin at both her outburst and her characterization. _I wouldn't have put it quite like that,_ he thought, then added: _nothing personal._

"Yeah…basically," the ANBU pack-leader agreed unapologetically and nodded. "I call it 'picking my spot'. It's kinda what I do."

Toru watched as the girl looked around furiously then seized a chunk of debris and flung it at him with all her might. Haku and Toru watched it sail through the air, land far short and wide right of the intended target, dance over the pavement for a few more feet, then skitter to a stop a good distance from the stocky shinobi's crud-crusted boots.

The ANBU regarded it for a moment before his eyes rose back toward the trapped pair.

Haku's grey eyes drifted toward Mari. "You know," he began softly, "you throw like a --."

"Shut up," she cut him off, but Haku grabbed her firmly by the shoulder and pulled her again back behind him.

"ANBU Captain Yamashite," he hailed seriously with an upward lift of his chin. "If there is anything decent in you, then I prevail upon it now."

Toru scowled. "Oh, please!" he barked back angrily, rolling his eyes. "Spare me the cheap chivalry! 'Please officer'," the veteran mocked in an affected, high-pitched voice, with hands clutched dramatically to his breast, "'do what you will to me but spare my belov-ed girlfriend!'" The ANBU's gaze narrowed. "Is THAT what you're going to hit me with? Don't bother. I already know the story; of COURSE she can go."

Toru formed a seal and directed his chakra, and the walls of the jonin's Mist-Labyrinth jutsu parted to form a doorway into glorious day. Mari looked toward it hesitantly, looked back at Haku then shook her head.

"Go on, Mari," said Haku with a charming, convincing grin. "I won't be a minute."

Lifted by the young fugitive's strange confidence, Mari took a halting step then looked back, plagued with doubt.

Again Haku smiled encouragingly and waved her on. The girl forced another step, had a change of heart and turned to rush back, but the vaporous palisades of Toru's jutsu crashed together and sealed her out. It didn't seem quite fair to the ANBU, who felt almost guilty from that last look on Mari's young face before it vanished behind a wall of mist. But then, so few things in life were fair.

It was just him and Haku now, sealed in.

"So…Haku," said Toru who eyed Zabuza's student cleverly. "You, uh, turned down Lord Hirai's offer, huh? I'm guessing from the context that that would be Lord Kissohamaru Hirai, Counselor and clan patriarch. I never thought you'd be involved with anybody that high up." The man drew then released a pensive breath, grinned then gestured in prosecutorial fashion. "But you got me curious now: why _did_ you turn him down, kill his ninjas," he tilted his head towards Juri's resting place, "and then his apprentice? IS it this sh-t hole of a village, or all the sh-tty little people in it? DO you love sweating your life away in the hot sun so much? IS it the girl?"

The ANBU paused to fold his thick arms and give the young fugitive a dubious, cockeyed leer. "Are you gonna tell me you did it all for love?" He broke off the pose, leaving his questions behind. "You never did tell Juri, so I don't suppose you'll tell me."

Haku closed his eyes and smiled charitably. "I'll tell you," he offered, "I might as well. It's about all those things, and none of them. I'd like to tell you that love was my reason. That would be quite poetic, I guess, and it would sound more noble than the truth. But in reality, my motives are purely selfish."

Toru leveled an eye at him curiously.

"It's about the future," Haku continued in earnest, "my future."

The battered fugitive swayed slightly, then seemed to blink his way back to lucidity. "As you know already," Haku explained, "I spent half my life in willing service to my master, Zabuza Momochi, The Demon of the Hidden Mist. I miss those times, as I miss him. Your Lord Hirai assumed I would serve him equally well, but I couldn't do it. Zabuza was dear to me, and I cherished him. Serving him, being a weapon, a tool in his hands was reward in itself and a reason enough for living. But now that he's been taken from me, I think," Haku's eyes canted upward in thought, "I think I'll be my OWN tool for awhile."

The teenager's bruised and bloody face twitched uncomfortably for a moment, then he added self-consciously, "That…that didn't exactly come out like I thought it would, but you get the idea."

"Sure," Toru allowed with a lopsided grin then spared a look toward his jutsu's impenetrable walls. "And that girl, Mari…was she part of this 'future' of yours, or what?"

Haku shrugged. "That's as much her decision as mine…probably more."

_There's some wisdom,_ thought Toru. "You don't seem so bad to me, Haku," the ANBU captain conceded. "It's almost a shame I can't judge you on what you'll do, rather than what you've done."

The fugitive cracked a smile. "If you're waiting for an apology, you're wasting your time," he declared with a gentle shake of his head. "Your Mizukage wants me dead. I understand that because my master and I tried to kill him and take his power. Just so you understand: I never felt a bit bad about that and I'm not standing here in judgment. I'm standing here because I refuse to run from my fate. It's not about good and evil, innocence or guilt. I served my master faithfully just as you serve yours."

"And just look where it's gotten you," grumbled the ANBU.

Haku gave the man a knowing smile and replied pointedly, "I might say the same thing to you."

Toru's lips parted. _So,_ the veteran realized, more than a little surprised, _he knows._

A regretful look came over the young ninja's face and he bowed. "I should not have said that, Pack-Leader Yamashite. It was," Haku thought for a moment and worried his lip, "callous."

"Forget it," offered Toru bluntly as he composed himself for what he'd have to do. "You're right after all. Besides, you're still far-and-away the most polite criminal I've ever had to take down."

Haku looked up at him and grinned as if the man had only made a little joke at his expense. "You think well of yourself, ANBU captain. But I have survived worse than this," he reported firmly, "and I shall survive you too."

Toru couldn't help but smirk, and almost laughed aloud in appreciation of Haku's comeback, but this was pure bluster…wasn't it? The young ninja had sustained crippling injuries, cracked his head open, lost a lot of blood and nearly all of his life energy. "Maybe I shouldn't have given you so long to recover," the jonin ventured. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," stated Haku, only now, with greater conviction, "I'm anxious to get this over with."

The two stared at each other and focused their attentions, both looking to counter and neither eager to go first.

Toru looked up then as he felt a presence and suddenly Orimi was there at his side. Without even looking, the man could sense her tension.

Haku shifted uneasily.

"Orimi," the big ANBU began in a low, steady tone. "Didn't I tell you I wanted to handle this myself?" When she delayed in replying, Toru spared her an instant's glance into her pale face. It surprised him too that she'd forgone her mask.

"He's coming," the kunoichi blurted in a trembling voice. Toru didn't have to ask who she meant.

"Now?!" he stammered, thinking: _So soon…so goddamn soon._ At once he felt hollow inside, breathless. Blood drained, synapses fired as the sum of his life tapered to a final point. In a few moments he made a decision. The man looked up again at Haku.

"Go," Toru blurted. "Get the hell out of here."

The fugitive's eyes went wide.

"What?" gasped Orimi who, mortified, squeezed her commander's meaty shoulder. "Chief, you can't!"

"You heard me," the big mist-ninja affirmed, dispelled his jutsu and waved the teenager on, "go!"

"Don't do this, Toru, please," Orimi whispered hoarsely into his ear. "It's your last mission!" the veteran kunoichi pleaded. "You can't go out like this!"

"What mission?" replied Toru. "You mean to kill The Demon's Apprentice? It's done." The man marched over to where a pile of ashes sat, muddy now amidst the melting ice, and pointed at it while his face took on a maniacal expression. "Here's all that's left of him!"

"Chief!"

"At least," the ANBU commander clarified then looked straight into the woman's dark eyes, "that's my story. You're in command now, Orimi. You're free to say and do what you want."

Haku approached, wary and tentative as he kept a reasonable distance. "Why?" he asked, mystified and doubtful. "Why would you do something like this?"

"As you somehow already knew, my time is up," intoned Toru. "It's over. My thirty years of loyal service to my master, the Mizukage, are about to be rewarded with execution. I guess that kind of made me re-think my priorities. But don't think it's such a big deal," he said with an exaggerated, smug expression and careless wave of his hand. "The way I figure it -- on the one hand, maybe you're not The Demon's Apprentice like everybody thinks. Maybe you're just some stupid, skinny kid named Haku who got caught up in Zabuza's bullsh-t like so many others, in which case maybe you deserve a second chance."

Haku looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

"On the other hand," Toru continued, matter-of-factly, "maybe you're exactly what people say – you're Zabuza's disciple to the bone, his lover and heir-apparent, who'll bring forth more war, bloodshed and destruction than your master ever did. If that's the case, well, then maybe that's what the world that created you deserves.

"Either way is fine with me," the ANBU leader concluded then fell silent.

Haku stared blankly at the two mist-ninja: Toru who stood resolved, and Orimi, who struggled visibly to remain composed while torn by fierce, conflicting emotions.

"Just remember one thing," Toru called out to the young ninja, then added gravely when the teenager looked back at him: "the future will be your epitaph…just like the past is mine."

* * *

**Haku**

Lost and dazed, Haku trudged forward, letting the ANBU captain and his lieutenant fade away behind him in the thinning mist. Even now, the shinobi half-suspected treachery -- that Toru and Orimi, joined by a recovered Eiji, Yukimasa and Aya would suddenly leap out at him; that it had all been some sort of sick, overly-elaborate scheme to break him mentally, after letting Juri break him physically.

Mari, no longer lost and trapped in Toru's Mist-Labyrinth, appeared amidst the wisps, gasped at the sight of him and ran over. "Haku! I can't believe it!" she cried, overjoyed and almost overcome with relief, squeezed his arm and leaned her head against him. "What happened back there? I thought that fat guy was gonna KILL you? What, did he let you go? What did you SAY to him?"

Mired in thought, the ninja hardly heard. There was something wrong here. Yes, he'd saved the Land of Waves from Lord Hirai's company of rogue ninja and yes, it seemed as though he no longer had to fear the ANBU tracking him anymore, although that situation hadn't been resolved at all the way he'd thought it would. Still there was something amiss.

"Hey," Mari added worriedly, "are, um, you gonna be ok? You're hurt, like, really, really bad if you didn't know."

The ninja's gaze rose as the fog continued to lift.

The unholy chakra Haku sensed preceded the man long moments before his fearful symmetry came forth from the mist, and again the teenager's grey eyes fell upon the baleful visage of Krishaney Rahaman. The Mizukage's supranatural emissary towered over Haku and Mari as he approached. Though dressed like an under-equipped ninja of the Hidden Mist, with his hitai-ate tied around his bare, bulging forearm, it was clear now more than ever that it was just part of his disguise. Whether he was the vessel for a demon or some monster playing at being human, his eyes did not blaze with power as Naruto's had but instead engendered upon those who beheld him a dreadful sense of desolation.

Mari huddled close to Haku, seeking shelter in his thin, battle-torn frame, then sighed and almost collapsed when the giant figure simply passed by with not so much as a glance in their direction. The girl had no occasion to remain at ease for long though, for following discreetly in Rahaman's wake filed two columns of mist-ninja with weapons drawn and faces up and alert. Again, Haku felt her tense as they continued their slow passage.

Haku, teetering in and out of consciousness, tried to remain on guard, but none of the arriving shinobi raised a hand against him as the boy and girl passed between their ranks. Most hardly even looked; those who did, did so only from curiosity about the severity of the strange teenager's wounds. And why would it be otherwise? Without the stolen ANBU mask and the accoutrements he wore as The Demon's Apprentice, only a very few would recognize Haku for who he was…and the way he appeared right now, probably not even them.

At last the ninja company faded into the mist and the departing pair saw the portals of the Great Naruto Bridge rise before them. The scene seemed almost surreal, absurd in a way, so sure had Haku been at times that he'd never set foot from this place.

_So…this is how it ends,_ he thought.

_Is it?_ answered Zabuza's angry voice, as it reverberated through the chambers of Haku's mind. _Is this how it ends for you, Haku, my Demon's Apprentice – you're just going to CRAWL offstage and go back to some anonymous, ordinary life, sweeping floors, laying brick and cutting wood, NOT men?_

_Through your actions, your spirit speaks. Haven't I always tried to teach you that, Haku? What is your spirit saying now, boy?_ he growled fiercely, his voice crashing like terrible thunder: _TELL ME!_

_I tried to warn you, Zabuza,_ added Meizu, the younger of the Demon Brothers, there's something wrong with that kid. His elder, Gouzu, grunted in harsh agreement.

_To be sure,_ commented the Mizukage's almost forgotten voice. _But perhaps the boy has peaked, and at such a young age too._

The ANBU's Eiji Tohei crowed cruelly: _worthless, cross-dressing FAG!_

As Mari and Haku approached the portals, a small, solitary and welcome sight awaited them – Chuuya! The black-haired boy gaped at the two of them, shouted with glee and ran up, almost beside-himself. With joy bright on her face, Mari rushed out to meet him, threw her arms around her little brother and squeezed hard enough nearly to make his big, round head pop off.

Haku looked on, but the smile that came to his thin lips faded as Sakura Haruno giggled girlishly, _You're NOTHING like Sasuke!_

_Aww, come ON!_ urged a phantom Chuuya supportively in his sharp, young voice. _You're a bad-ass NINJA!_

The real Chuuya before him smiled angelically, basking in his sister's affection. But Mari then suddenly threw him off and hammered her fist hard into his chest, making him yelp and start. Again and again she hit him and hit him until the boy wriggled away and started to run while his sister gave chase, shouting at him to come back.

_Oh, puh-leeze,_ Juri scoffed at Haku from beyond the grave. _You're just some fan-boy, Iceman. Without Zabuza, you ain't sh-t._

_I, for one, certainly expected better,_ offered Lord Kissohomaru Hirai's regal accents, as the elderly man clicked his tongue. _And to think I offered you the throne of Kirigakure, what a positively absurd notion._

After circling around and around, Mari set aside her anger as Chuuya drew up to Haku and hugged him tightly, pressing the side of his young face against Haku's chest.

Unbidden, the ninja's hand rose then rested atop the youngest Tezuka brother's head then gently tousled his hair. But all the while, Haku's mind dwelled elsewhere.

_Hmph,_ agreed Sasuke Uchiha, _I never saw what the big deal was with this guy. I mean, just look at that face, that hair – nothing like a REAL ninja at all._

_I just…_rasped Naruto's piping, gravelly tenor, heartbreaking in its disappointment. _I just thought you'd be stronger. I mean, that guy, Toru…that big demon guy's gonna kill him, you know? He had you dead to rights but he let you go. And now, what,_ the genin growled in harsh rebuke,_ you're just gonna walk away when he NEEDS you? When you could save him?! That SUCKS!_

The fugitive ninja suddenly became aware of Mari and Chuuya pushing and pulling on him, for he had stopped walking. Rising to his full height, the teenager stared straight ahead but the world was even more distant now than before, a faint background only, a reflection of something dim and far away. Slowly, like an old gate creaking open for the first time in a long time, Haku turned his head to look back then swung fully around. The ninja's hands slid over his chest, reaching into quivers of senbon he no longer had.

The girl and the little boy's mouths were moving, but Haku couldn't hear what they said. They moved faster, opened wider, as he started to march back out onto the bridge.

_Just like before,_ said Haku to himself. _Remember when you, Zabuza and the rest of his army attacked the Mizukage's palazzo; how you swept past the guards and killed most of his praetorian? Do it just like that – Kill Rahaman, whatever he is, kill the mist-ninja and THEN you may go. Toru and Orimi are sure to help you in this._

The ninja realized he'd stopped moving then, though he hadn't intended to, and his impassive, grey eyes fell into the blazing blacks of Chuuya Tezuka who stood before him with both legs braced against the ground, and both hands, even the one in a cast, planted solidly into Haku's bare, bruised and punctured tummy. Zabuza's disciple brought his palm along side the black-haired boy's bowling-ball head and shoved him aside. Though he'd meant to be gentle, the boy went flying as if he were nothing more than an inflatable toy.

_Sorry, Chuuya,_ the fleeting thought came then passed in an instant.

Haku had only taken another couple of steps when Mari appeared before him, angry and blocking his way. The ninja's eyes lowered to her face but did not meet it; his attention was fixed beyond her and the battle to come.

In a flash of movement faster than Mari could follow, Haku had passed beyond her. Shouts rang in The Demon's Apprentice's ears but he didn't hear them, until the next especially loud and strident shout was punctuated by a slight surge of chakra.

The ninja's eyes lifted curiously as he turned towards it. _A…a jutsu?_ Haku wondered then turned right into the unexpected punch. Years of training made him exhale sharply and sent the edge of his hand sweeping down to deflect the strike that drove hard and straight toward his midsection just below the navel. Disappointment swept through his mind as he realized it wasn't going to make it in time. Haku's block struck the wrist just behind the oncoming low left a fraction of a second too late and little Chuuya's chakra flashed on impact, surging through the ninja's body in waves of shock and nausea, and letting The Demon's Apprentice know that his efforts to teach the boy Cannon-Fist jutsu had not been in vain.

* * *

**Toru**

_I remember where I came from there were burning buildings and a fiery red sea.  
I remember all my lovers; I remember how they held me.  
World without end, remember me._

East: The edge of the world.  
West: Those who came before me.

When my father died, we put him in the ground.  
When my father died, it was like a whole library  
had burned down.

_World without end, __remember me._

--Laurie Anderson, 'World without End'


	20. Chapter 20

**Mari**

_What the f-ck is he doing?!_ the girl's thoughts wailed as Haku vanished suddenly from right there within arm's reach in front of her, then reappeared almost instantly a few feet behind. _It doesn't make any sense! _she continued, completely confused.

Somehow, the fugitive from the Land of Water had managed to survive his fight with Juri, then convinced the ANBU captain who'd been chasing him for weeks to just let him go, then, right after that, an even scarier ninja showed up accompanied by an army of killers, and Haku, so badly beat-up he can hardly walk, wants to go back to fight them?! This was too much!

"Hey!" Mari raged at the slender teenager's back, furious in frustration at not even being able to slow him down. "What the hell?!"

Beside herself, and not knowing at all what to do or say, the girl looked toward Chuuya, who Haku had just sent flying like twenty feet, to see if he was alright. Her little brother had been gone, run-away, for four days; that's how long it had been since last she'd seen him. The lower part of his right arm was in a cast, and she didn't even know how he'd broken it. Amazingly durable though, the kid struggled his way to his feet with a scowling, anguished look on his pudgy, young face.

Mari sagged with relief for a moment then frowned as she turned back toward Haku who marched his way, grievously wounded though he was, neither seeing nor hearing, slowly but unstoppably back to war for reasons the girl knew she would never and could never comprehend. A scream chambered in her throat but she refused to voice it, recognizing it as a useless gesture. Lowering her brow, Mari instead set after him. There had to be some way to make him see or make him stop. The question was -- if she'd be able to find it in time.

"Mari!" Chuuya shouted, and his sister cringed reflexively at the annoying, penetrating sound.

"WHAT?!" she stopped and snarled back angrily, purely out of habit, then stared. Her strange little brother's face had set with a look she'd never seen before.

Chuuya brought his palms up close to his chest, elbows out and level with the ground. Inhaling a volume of air, the boy circled his hands wide to either side, up along the center of his body; then exhaled as he pressed them straight down. The residual mist from the ANBU, Toru's, jutsu rippled away from his feet in an eddying, rolling billow, motivated by some force unseen.

Mari gasped then as, in a flash of movement, Chuuya launched himself headlong at Haku in a burst of blinding speed. The boy flew, compressed and compacted almost into a ball which then popped open when he fired his good hand hard into Haku's midsection just as the ninja started to turn towards him.

Irresistible force and immovable object collided in a spectacle of physics. Mari watched in shock as the two seemed to cancel each other for the briefest of moments before her brother went violently spinning away then crashed to the pavement while Haku flew backwards, jackknifed from the blow, hit the guard-wall then collapsed in a heap at its base.

With everything suddenly and surprisingly quiet once more, the stunned Mari, being the only one of the three still conscious, looked back and forth between Chuuya and Haku's still, motionless forms.

Distant gulls whined.

A breeze blew over the seaway-spanning Great Naruto Bridge, stirring through the lone girl's jet-black hair and cotton pajamas.

"OH!" she erupted angrily and threw her hands up in dismayed disbelief, "that's just GREAT, guys! No, really, what do you do for an encore?!"

Growling, eye twitching in aggravation, Mari grumbled then was torn for a moment on who to tend to first. Picking one, she hurried to Haku's side. If the fugitive ninja didn't look so good before, whatever Chuuya had just done to him sure hadn't helped. The girl looked over the teenager's slack face then remembered, in something of an epiphany, that there had been volunteers helping people throughout the city because of the earlier explosion.

_They must be taking the wounded somewhere, right?_ It seemed like a sound plan, and having one brought the girl a level of comfort.

Mari turned to look as she heard Chuuya start to stir. Her little brother's broken, hyperventilating gasps brought her to his side. The boy huddled on his knees, quivering and curled over his arms as he sobbed with his forehead pressed against the hard pavement.

"Hey," offered Mari with tender concern as she stroked his back. "You ok, little bro'? What's wrong?" Chuuya rocked back and forth, tears pouring like rivers from his eyes as snot dribbled from his nose, his face flushed beet red. "Shhh, it's ok," his sister cooed and tried to get her brother to peel open and sit back. "It's ok," she reaffirmed then asked him in a confident, comforting tone: "Come on…let me see."

"M-m-ma, m-m-ma," Chuuya babbled incoherently, his limbs trembling, as he slowly unfolded, "m-m-my HAND!" he wailed, and Mari could see the ugly bruise and explosive swelling on the inside of his left arm just behind the bend of the wrist.

_Yes,_ she realized at once, _he broke the other one too._ "Chuuya," she lectured gently in an unmistakable imitation of their mother, "now, honey, I told you – if you play with those older boys you're going to get hurt." An encouraging snicker bubbled its way through the boy's tearful breaths. Mari switched then to Jimon's gruff, pain-in-the-ass, world-weariness, "Yeah, squirt," she chided in a forced baritone, "and you're running out of sh-t to break."

Chuuya coughed a laugh. "Sh-shut up," he blurted at last and mopped his face with the hem of his green t-shirt.

Mari grinned sympathetically then squeezed his shoulders. "Chuuya," she began again gravely, "listen to me; this is really, really important. Look at me. Look at me." The girl waited until the kid was paying her full attention. "We've got to get Haku some serious help fast. You and I will have to carry him. Do you think you can help me?"

Chuuya's face set with determination then he nodded soldierly and Mari helped him up. The boy kept his injured arm locked close to his belly as they went together to the fallen Haku. Between the two of them, they managed to hoist the ninja up, get on either side of him and drape his long, limp arms around their shoulders.

As the three of them stole from the bridge, limping along as quickly and quietly as they could, Mari looked back worriedly through the fading mist to see if either that monster-looking guy or the mist-ninja were giving chase. Sighing with relief that they didn't seem to be, the girl set her sights down the road ahead and tried as calmly and supportively as she could to urge her injured little brother on.

* * *

After a short, tense trek through a section of abandoned, fire-scorched city, Mari and Chuuya found themselves coming up behind a hastily-constructed barricade of barrels and sawhorses – a barricade guarded by ninja of the Hidden Mist.

_MORE freakin' ninja?! _Mari groaned at this latest, ugly development. _You gotta be kidding!_

Of the eight of them who stood watch only a couple seemed tall and filled-out enough to be adults, the rest being noticeably young, younger even than Mari herself.

_Genin,_ Mari remembered the word from somewhere then hissed a curse as she plotted a course around them. _Just because they're kids doesn't mean they're not dangerous, _the girl realized. _Haku and Juri are just 'kids' to most people, and so were those leaf-ninja from a couple of months back._

Being that the invaders were busy trading eyeballs with a much larger number of Wave Country's tense citizens who clambered around the barricade's periphery demanding answers or venting spleen, the girl calculated that her little group had a chance to pass unnoticed, and hoped for the best.

Almost on cue however, a shinobi, certainly no older than Haku, did a double-take then leaped to confront them.

"Hold it!" the boy barked, then, when they seemed intent on ignoring him, drew a kunai and, with furrowed brow, snarled louder: "I said: RIGHT THERE!"

"What?!" Mari barked back in a shocked, desperate voice, then plead: "My friend was caught in the explosion! I've GOT to get help!"

The mist-ninja, dressed in a grey cuirass-jacket worn over dark blue fatigues, looked them over then frowned. Greenish hair, like ropes of seaweed, hung from beneath a black, knit cap while, around his neck like a dog-tag, hung a hitai-ate with those four wiggly lines Mari recognized as the sigil for Kirigakure-no-Sato.

"Who are you?" demanded the shinobi with an imperious air.

"Ugh!" Mari protested. "I'm Mari Tezuka, that's my brother Chuuya, and this is Hiroo Okame. Would you PLEASE let us go?"

The ninja hesitated.

"Well?! Come on!" shouted Mari, who set upon the sentry with a vengeance. "He's gonna die! What do you think you're trying to do standing there acting like some kind of tough-guy? If you were any kind of REAL ninja you'd make yourself useful!"

Seemingly shaken by the girl's recalcitrance, the genin turned, cupped his hands and shouted, "Goto-sensei!"

His elder, a thin, officious-looking man with close-cropped, ashen hair, who didn't appear at all phased by the growing mob that pressed against the scant borders of his barricade, gave his much-younger junior a cross look then strolled over to them.

Mari let out a breath, feeling that she hadn't played that at all well and that she'd stood a far better chance of steering the kid than she did his boss.

"Yes, Mr. Takami," the genin's officer inquired with infuriating calm, "what seems to be the problem?"

"Uh," the young ninja endeavored to explain then leveled a finger at the newcomers, "these guys just showed up out of nowhere from the direction of the bridge. 'Said that middle one was hurt in the blast."

The man looked the three over with an inscrutable expression, checked Haku's head and nodded. "It seems possible that could be the case. Since you are a ninja now, officially, anyway, what do you suggest would be the proper course of action?"

"Oh!" the boy cried, his murky eyes popping, as the answer suddenly came to him. "Check for gen-jutsu!"

"Ah, Makoto," replied the senior shinobi smoothly, "one day, people will scale great mountains to sit at your feet and listen to your wisdom. By all means, proceed."

The green-haired shinobi looked at the three detainees squarely and seriously, then raised a hand to his chest with fore and ring fingers joined. "Release!" he declared with great seriousness.

When nothing happened, Mari relaxed then took the three half a step forward, but the man, Goto, stayed them with a palm. "That was terrible, Mr. Takami," the veteran chastised with a sour look on his face. "You're not at the academy anymore, this is live. Technique like that simply won't do." He turned then toward Mari, Haku and Chuuya then raised his hand. "Like this; focus your mind," he illustrated, "release!"

Again nothing happened and Mari rolled her eyes. She was really, really getting tired of all this ninja bullsh-t. What did they THINK was going to happen?

"You're clear, move on," ordered Makoto with 'action-hero' gravitas, but again his overseer intervened.

"Just a second," interrupted Goto-sensei, much to Mari's discomfiture, as the man turned and looked down at his student. "Go get Koushin and Miki then bear these three to the field hospital. Given the deplorable state of your whole team's so-called skills, you're sure to need the practice."

Thus charged, Makoto did as instructed. Koushin turned out to be a taller boy, somewhat dumpy-looking for a highly-trained ninja, but with an alert, surprisingly-affable expression and dark hair, while Miki, the team's only girl, was lean and sullen, with pearlescent skin and sharp, darting eyes. Of them, only Koushin seemed especially enthusiastic about being here and eagerly took charge of Mari, apparently delighted at the idea of helping a 'damsel in distress'. Miki took Chuuya who gasped aloud as Makoto relieved him and his sister of the horrifically-wounded Haku.

Mari excused herself from Koushin's chevalier's hold and went to her brother.

She had to give him credit, the girl thought with a slight grin – the little guy had dutifully kept his mouth shut this whole time as was Tezuka family s.o.p (standing operating procedure). "Chuuya," Mari soothed and looked straight into the boy's dark eyes. "I know your wrist hurts, but these ninja are going to help us. In just a little bit, we'll find someone to take care of it, ok?"

Chuuya nodded obediently, understanding what his older sister meant as well as what she'd said.

"Yeah, kid," added Makoto who gave the boy an askance look, "take it easy. I got my arm broke lots of times; it's no big deal. You need to worry about THIS guy," he illuminated, indicating Haku. "He's pretty f-cked up."

After a moment, the three mist-ninja took good hold of Chuuya, Haku and Mari and bore them racing through the streets at speeds Mari once thought impossible, across rooftops, and leaping in great bounds from parapet to parapet.

* * *

The field hospital, as it turned out, was nothing more than a series of great, canvas tents used formerly to shelter construction materials from the weather. Some cots, beds and palettes had been brought in but, for the most part, patients sat in loose rows on curbs or lay on the bare ground or pavement with their heads resting on folded articles of clothing. Considering the enormity of the explosion earlier that morning, together with all the fires, it didn't seem like there were that many seriously wounded -- mostly cuts, scrapes and bruises. Had the blast happened in the center of town rather than in the middle of the Great Naruto Bridge, over water and a good distance from shore, it would have been a different story.

As it turned out, the construction consortium had a well-stocked clinic with two emergency surgeons, a handful of nurses and paramedics, and a good three-dozen technicians proficient with first aid, and there were a few others from the village itself around who'd practiced at the hospital a few years ago before Gato's depredations had forced its close.

After a few moments with Haku laying unconscious on a single, thin sheet spread over a flattened, corrugated-cardboard box laid atop the asphalt, and Chuuya huddling miserably nearby nursing his arm as pitiably as a wounded puppy, Mari concluded that help would not flock to where it was needed all on its own. It would have to be brought…by force if necessary.

"Stay here," she growled tensely at Chuuya who nodded. "I'm going to get Uncle Maceo." Mari took a step, stopped short, then turned back sharply. "Chuuya, what did I just tell you?"

The boy gave her a blank look. "Um," he started, wide-eyed, "stay here?"

"Exactly," the girl affirmed, reinforcing the edict with a glare and a threatening shake of her finger.

From tent to tent, Mari Tezuka roamed, in search of her uncle who, she felt certain, would be here helping out. The retired surgeon was a good guy, noble of mien, courageous and charitable of spirit, always willing to lend a helping hand, but mostly, he loved to show off and couldn't possibly resist an occasion like this to do so. She succeeded in finding him, only two tents away, where he was disinfecting then bandaging a cut on a man's arm. Being large and with a distinctive, familiar voice, Uncle Maceo had been easy to spot.

Mari's fingers latched like five pliers onto his thick forearm, hard enough to make her uncle's eyes bug as he sucked in a startled breath. She quickly told him what the problem was and whisked him back to where Haku lay. When they got there, Chuuya was gone.

The girl gestured vaguely then looked around in barely controlled anger.

"Didn't you say Chuuya was here too?" inquired Maceo obtusely.

"Oh, I'm sure he just went to find a bathroom," she stated in cool reply. "Yeah, that's it. That's it for sure," Mari went on, voice rising by degrees, "'cause I told him specifically to stay right here."

Her uncle's expression fell as he began to understand. "Well, Chuuya's like that, impulsive, I suppose. He's inherited the Tezuka penchant for caprice."

Mari, ignoring Maceo's thoroughly inadequate explanation, narrowed her brow. "I'm going to murder him," she announced with cool nonchalance, then turned back toward her uncle and waved a hand at him. "I'm not just saying it this time; I'm actually going to do it! I've got like a dozen brothers; mom and dad won't even miss ONE. And he's small too, so the body will be easy to get rid of."

While Mari continued deliberations, vis-à-vis, Chuuya's life, Maceo crouched over Haku and made a face uncommon among seasoned medical professionals. "What the hell did he DO, Mari – jump off a damn cliff?!" he gasped irritably. "A good thing that pile of pitchforks broke his fall."

The man knelt, opened his medical bag then started to examine his patient. The doctor checked the young ninja's pulse and pupils, made motions toward several of his wounds then sat back with a blank expression.

"What?" asked Mari, tense with anxiety, "why'd you stop?"

Maceo shook his head then let out a breath. "I'll do what I can, Mari," the man ventured desolately, "but this really doesn't look good."

"But you fixed him last time."

Her Uncle looked up at her, seemingly baffled at why she didn't understand what was so obvious to him. "Last time was a walk in the park compared to this," explained Maceo with the slow gesture of a man confronted by the unsolvable. "I knew what to do last time. This time, beyond the obvious severe injuries, and you can see there's a LOT of them, there's things wrong with him that I don't even understand."

While the pair began to argue back and forth, growing louder and more heated as fraying emotions took hold, another voice interrupted.

"Hey," began Chuuya in a tentative whisper, "Uncle…Mari."

Both looked, first at him, then at who he'd brought with him: a pretty, young girl dressed in blue fatigues and a grey, armored jacket. A hitai-ate rested over her smooth brow, while the white zodiac mask of Kirigakure's ANBU hung unworn behind her neck.

Mari paled, struck silent as if before the scythe-wielding angel of death. "Chuuya," she muttered hoarsely, horrified, "what…what have you done?"

"She can help. I made her promise," offered Chuuya in a plaintive voice. "Her name's Aya. She fixed my arm before."

Aya Sakamoto fidgeted uncomfortably under Mari, Chuuya and Maceo's combined scrutiny. "I will if I can," the kunoichi offered in a shy, schoolgirl's voice, in answer to their ugly looks.

"That's crap!" spat Mari who took a step toward her. "You've been trying to kill him for the last couple of months!"

"As a shinobi," Aya replied quietly, "I am bound to my Kage to do my utmost to fulfill any task I'm given. But I understand now that this mission is over with, and I am no longer so charged."

Mari hissed derisively and shook her head in vehement disbelief.

"Mari," Maceo advised in a level tone. "There's really no choice. The injuries this boy has sustained…are beyond me."

When everyone fell silent and still at the doctor's gloomy pronouncement, Aya moved slowly toward the patient.

Mari's hand snapped like a cobra, catching the ninja at the wrist, with a sound like a loud slap. The startled ANBU stopped cold while the girl in pajamas and boots waited with her eyes pinched shut.

"Just so you know," advised Mari with a slow, stifling intensity, "as one woman to another, if you hurt him --." She broke off, but then opened her eyes and stared into the ANBU's, pausing to swallow hard as a tear trickled down her freckled cheek. "If you take him from me, so help me --."

Aya's expression flickered awkwardly for a moment before she could meet the desperate girl's glare. "I understand your feelings," she replied with unpracticed delicacy. "As I said, as a ninja, I can only do as I'm ordered. But as a member of the medical corps, I will do what I can to save his life. I swore an oath to heal the sick, mend the wounded and do no harm." The mist-ninja gave Mari a reassuring smile before continuing, "And I swore that oath to a power higher even than my Mizukage."

Reluctantly, Mari released her hold on the ANBU's wrist then stepped away, unable to bring herself to watch what might happen next.

Aya knelt then calmly looked over Haku. "My," she offered in an excess of honesty. "It is difficult to tell where to begin."

* * *

**Haku**

_For my part_

_I know nothing with any certainty._

_but the sight of the stars makes me dream…_

--Vincent van Gogh

Slowly, as petals opening toward the dawn, so the ninja's eyelids opened. Haku calmly observed the ragged underside of those same familiar floorboards and rough-cut wood joists that seemed to float not too far above him; the same lazy cobwebs that swayed in the drafty air.

His mind reeled suddenly with a horrendous and dizzying sense of dislocation – not _where_ so much, that was plain, but _when?_ Zabuza, his sensei, was dead…wasn't he? For how long? Had it been only a few days or a few weeks?

_Mari…Chuuya,_ the young shinobi remembered groggily as the recent memories gradually returned, then continued, _Inari…Juri, Lord Hirai._

Long moments passed before he felt assured that all those events had actually taken place and were not just vivid, half-remembered dreams.

_Toru._

Groaning as he felt dammed blood start to rush, Haku rubbed his head then pushed himself up gingerly. His body was covered by a light blanket and swathed in bandages, much as he'd been after the first battle at the bridge, but they were more prevalent and in different places now if he remembered right. The weary ninja expelled a disgusted breath then lay back down.

"You know…for a guy they call '_The Demon's Apprentice_', you sure get beat up an awful lot," he offered the air, then let his eyes roam.

Everything in the Tezukas' basement was just as he remembered. Along one wall, just as before, there towered shelves with strange sculptures of clay and plaster – creepy, human-like figures married with mechanisms, gears and wiring, which Mari's multi-talented Uncle Maceo had crafted. Stacked up here, there and on the floor were paintings that featured clowns, platypuses, hats, bells and various other surreal compositions. Everywhere else hunkered collections of old furniture, pieces of junk, tools, and odd paraphernalia too numerous to catalog.

The patient's eyes narrowed sharply then as he sensed that he was not alone.

_What's that sound? Is that…someone breathing?_ he wondered.

The practically-mummy-wrapped Haku looked around again but found nothing. At last, he pushed himself up higher, looked down and saw a large-headed, black-haired boy kneeling there, low and quiet, with his forehead pressed to the floor right by his bedside.

The recovering ninja rolled the tip of his tongue around the inside of his cheek and stared at him with a puzzled expression. "Chuuya?" asked Haku tentatively, not knowing quite what to expect.

"S-s-s-sensei!" begged Chuuya, his high voice squeaking, trembling and close to tears. "I'm so sorry I hit you I didn't mean it please please oh please forgive me I'll never do again I swear!"

"Shh," the ninja prevailed with a sigh. "It's ok, Chuuya. Forget it." Looking away for a moment, Haku blew out a breath, shook his head gently then bit his lip. "I don't know what I was thinking back there on the bridge anyway. I guess…I just didn't want that ANBU captain, Toru, to die after being kind enough to let me live." After awhile of trying to map the full complexity, simplicity or nature of his motives, the teenager gave up in weary frustration. "I don't know," he blurted then looked back down at his student with a charitable grin. "In any case, you did what you thought was right. Maybe if I'd had the sheer nerve to do what you did then Zabuza would still be alive." Haku considered this more thoroughly, then ventured bleakly, "Of course, then I might be dead."

The weight of his thoughts pressed on him and Haku lay his head back down then slowly, as much as his bandages and stitches would allow, rested his hands behind his head. "I could drive myself mad thinking about it," he opined, frowned then said to the boy in a heartfelt voice: "Whatever it is, you've already proven yourself to be a far greater disciple than I ever was. So please, Chuuya…rise."

"Sensei!" Chuuya declared then shot awkwardly to his feet, popping up like a jack-in-the-box over the resting patient. "If I'm a better student it's only 'cause I had a better sensei!"

Haku opened his mouth to dispute but saw that now both of Chuuya's arms were in casts, and broke out in sputtering laughter. The ninja's wounds tore at him; pain shot across his quivering midsection like fireworks through the sky while Haku tried desperately to stop but couldn't.

"What's wrong, sensei?" asked the boy, uncomprehendingly.

Haku shook his head, trying desperately not to laugh, with all his ninja techniques failing. "Chuuya," he gasped; tears of pain and mirth welling in his eyes. "T…th-thank you for saying that. B-b-but…if I was really any good, I'd have made you strengthen those wrists a long time before showing you Cannon-Fist jutsu!"

The boy gaped at him, his expression wriggled uncertainly for a moment before his face turned away with a shy smile.

Both looked up then as the basement door creaked opened and Mari poked her head down.

"Hey! You're up!" she cried excitedly then hurried down the stairs. "The squirt bugging you?"

"NO!" countered Chuuya who crossed his doughy arms in adamantine defiance. "We're talking about important ninja stuff!"

"Oh, well," Mari acknowledged with a sarcastic edge, "excuse me."

Fighting the tight pulls of bandages and stitches, Haku sat up, clutching his blanket tightly around himself, as Mari came before him and brushed the stray hair from his face.

Haku looked up at her. "Mari," he began in pained earnest, "I'm so sorry. I don't know what --."

The girl put a finger to his lips, bringing him at once to silence as his grey eyes fixed then crossed.

"But, Mari --."

"But," she interrupted firmly, "nothing." She held his head between her hands, pressed her face against his then took him in her arms. "You're ok now, and that's all that matters."

The fugitive nodded softly, and they kissed.

"Hey," squeaked Chuuya in protest. "Impressionable kid in the room!"

Mari straightened and gave him a dismissive smirk. "Get used to it."

Haku shrugged. "I was just impressed he used the word 'impressionable'."

The boy gaped, mouth wide open. "Hey, come ON!" he wailed in hurt indignation then raised his cast-encumbered arms like some sort of hospitalized prairie-dog. "You guys gotta be nice to me!" Chuuya pouted. "I broke my haaaaaaands!"

Mari erupted in snickering fit that gave way to laughter. "Break both legs too, and we'll talk!" she crowed with a mean grin then sat beside Haku on his worktable/bed while the ninja chuckled softly and shook his head.

Looking around the room again, the teenager asked her, "What am I doing here?"

"You live here, stupid," the girl replied, her voice teasingly-cross.

"No, I mean, what about Jimon," Haku clarified. "He was against me staying and was very clear about it as I remember."

Mari waved her hand in an absent gesture. "Don't worry about him. He's handled."

The patient's grey eyes flickered toward her curiously.

"We just," the girl went on to explain in a casual voice, "came to an understanding. It's all very civilized."

Haku's eyes widened. "What kind of understanding, I wonder."

"Very simple – I get to keep MY secrets, and HE gets to keep his."

"I see," said Haku. "A picture emerges."

"Mm-hmm. You see, YOU are my biggest secret…the only one worth talking about anyway."

"Yeah!" interjected Chuuya. "But Jimon's done TONS of stuff worse than this."

"Between the two of us," Mari explained as she exchanged a slow (and modified) high-five with her youngest sibling, "we know enough about our dear, sweet older brother, to make his life really, really suck hard if we told mom and dad."

The basement door opened again with a bird-like squeak, and all three looked up as Mrs. Tezuka made her way down. The slight tension Haku felt in Mari's arm around his waist put the ninja a little on guard.

Mari's mom stopped anxiously at the bottom of the stairs and gave the patient a long, tearful look. "I heard the voices and couldn't believe it," she said warmly, then paced in front of Haku, her eyes roving from injury to injury. "You are, without-a-doubt, the most accident-prone boy I've ever known," the woman admonished in a voice that was almost mad. "It's a miracle you didn't die, Hiroo!"

It took a moment for the teenager to adjust to his old pseudonym. "Ah, uh, yes, ma-am," he offered weakly.

"We were all worried sick when you went missing!" she said then turned like a demon toward Chuuya who cringed from his mother's wrath. "And then THIS little idiot runs off and goes LOOKING for you and he's gone for four days and doesn't even bother to tell anyone where he's going or what he's doing!

"But," she amended softly at last, "he's back, and I'm glad to see you up again after that awful accident."

The woman stroked the side of Haku's face then cupped his chin tenderly with her fingers. The teenager looked up into her firm, brown eyes. The care and concern in Mrs. Tezuka's expression, her voice, and in her practiced, maternal touch brought back feelings Haku had thought were eight-years dead. That's how long it had been since he'd been anyone's child.

"Please try to be more careful, ok?" the woman scolded gently. "Your job is really dangerous and you could've been killed."

"He knows, mom," affirmed Mari, who squeezed Haku tighter and rested her head on his bandaged shoulder.

"Accident?" muttered Haku in a distant voice.

Mari nodded suavely, explaining to her mother, "He's still a little 'out-of-it'."

Mom nodded, smiling understandingly. "I guess she didn't tell you yet. Mari got the whole story from your foreman. Somebody overloaded some scaffolding and the whole thing fell over on you." Mari shook her head at the tragedy of it all while the ninja gulped guiltily and looked away. "They didn't know you were living with us and so they didn't know who to tell where you were and what had happened.

"Anyway," Mrs. Tezuka continued with a powerfully comforting smile, "Maceo says you need to get back on a steady diet as soon as possible if you want to get well. I'll bring down a plate for you if you're not up to the stairs just yet."

Haku watched the woman walk away then pace back upstairs. When the door had closed, he turned to Mari and asked pointedly: "Accident?"

Mari nodded. "Yep."

"And your parents believed that?" he continued dubiously then shook his head. "It isn't possible."

"Give me some credit," Mari assured the naïve boy. "Y'see, the trick is: you got to make yourself believe it first. Once you've done that, the rest is easy."

"She's REALLY good," testified Chuuya with a vigorous nod.

Haku frowned. "It isn't right," said the young ninja gravely. "Your parents give nothing but kindness and we give back lies. This can't continue."

Mari and Chuuya exchanged looks.

"Ok," agreed Mari -- the very paradigm of stoic acceptance. "You're right. You might as well go up and tell them."

Haku's brow rose half-heartedly at the prospect then narrowed with resolve. "I will," he stated, raising looks of trepidation from the Tezuka children as the ninja called their bluff. "But maybe," the teenager amended, the more he thought about it, "not just now."

"Sure," Mari readily agreed.

"Later's good," added Chuuya.

Brother and sister looked at each other and grinned furtively.

Haku, following this transaction, grumbled. Even though he wasn't really a part of this family, he kind of was…and it was much more complicated than he ever would have thought.

"Aww," Mari consoled the teenager with real but romanticized empathy as she gave him an affectionate hug. "Don't be down, tiger. You're awake again and everything. We should be celebrating." The girl sat up suddenly, gasped and gave him an amazed smile. "Oh! I almost forgot," she cried cheerily, "there's a letter for you."

Haku looked at her, startled, as a broadly-grinning Chuuya hopped up, retrieved an envelope from one of the shelves, pinching it gently between the fingers and thumbs that poked out of his casts, then handed it to the ninja with a ceremonial flourish.

"For me?" Haku wondered aloud, having never gotten one before. "Who's it from? Who even knows I'm here?"

"Open it and see," said Mari as she looked over his shoulder.

Haku delicately pried it open. Within was a short message crafted in careful, childlike brushstrokes:

_**Hiroo:**_

_**Get Well Soon! I mean it!**_

_**–Inari.**_

The characters were accompanied by a smiley face adorned with multiple bandages crossed like the letter X.

"Awww!" Mari gushed expressively then snatched the letter away to have a closer, longer look at it. "That is SO sweet!"

Haku grinned wryly. "Well, it's good you don't want to beat him up anymore."

The girl's hands fell into her lap as she gave him a look like he'd just farted. "I NEVER wanted to beat him up," she countered, elbowed his arm, then turned her attention back to Inari's letter. "I can't believe you'd even say something like that."

The bandaged teenager blinked blankly for a moment then wisely, he thought, moved on.

"He asked about you," Chuuya reported, "almost every day."

"Every day?" muttered the ninja, who looked up sharply. "How long have I been out? What's happened during all that time?"

Mari shot Chuuya a cautioning look then patted Haku's knee. "Nothing much. It's pretty-much back to the same old thing," she said with the faintest quaver in her voice, then, before he could follow up, "we got you a present too!"

Chuuya brightened. "Yeah, Hak, um, ah, Hiroo, we sure did!"

Haku looked up. "Oh?" he inquired interestedly, though a little depressed that he could be diverted so easily, twice now.

"Come on, Chuuya," cheered Mari, "go get it!"

Chuuya took off like a racehorse from the starting gate, galloped up the stairs then disappeared through the door.

Mari smiled while Haku waited anxiously, listening for Chuuya's loud, fast-paced footsteps. It had been awhile, a long while, since he'd gotten a real present. Zabuza and his crew were never big on that sort of thing.

At last, the ninja heard the boy returning much slower than he'd left, and Chuuya came back down the stairs holding a spacious wire cage within which a large, fluffy, brown-and-white-furred rabbit rested, nibbling away on a small mound of vegetation.

The ninja sat up, grey eyes wide, deeply moved, as the boy brought the cage to him.

Chuuya grinned sheepishly. "We looked all over for that big, all-white one you said you had, but we couldn't find it so…"

"It's…it's amazing," cooed Haku as he took the rabbit from the cage then set in on his lap to stroke and appreciate. The teenager looked back at Chuuya and Mari with a beatific smile. "Thank you."

Though the serious side of his nature nagged at him to find answers or dwell on all the various things that had happened during the previous weeks, Haku shoved them aside. There would be plenty of time to dwell, to second-guess and to mourn. For a shinobi, and probably for most people, moments like these were too few and far-between to dilute by being distracted. If the fugitive had learned anything over the course of what Maceo had called Haku's 'mis-spent youth,' it was that simple acts like these, expressions of love, as much as, no, make that, more than anything, were what made life worthwhile.

* * *

**Haku**

Walking again through the crowded village streets under the early afternoon sun, Haku could see why Mari had dissuaded him from going out – the place was crawling with mist-ninja!

Five weeks had passed since what the locals now called 'The Second Battle at the Bridge' – a terrible fight during which the apprentice Haku, distraught and enraged over the death of his master, Zabuza Momochi, the notorious Demon of the Hidden Mist, during the 'First Battle at the Bridge,' had been brought down by a team of ANBU hunter-ninja from Kirigakure. Although several other versions persisted, having splintered off in an almost-endless variety of increasingly-labyrinthine plots, that one was the story most accepted as true.

Haku had been taken aback at first at how noble and tragic a heroic he was remembered as being – the very embodiment of loyalty, and courage in the face of adversity. Of course, given the Land of Wave's history, how could its people NOT side with the hounded and overmatched underdog who'd met his end at the hands of the minions of the very country they now found themselves occupied by?

At the markets, the young ninja had even come across a puppet show in which HE'D been the star. The sight of himself, in marionette form, had made his eyes widen in an amazement that had only grown when he'd noticed his representation's strong brow and chin, the wide shoulders and sculpted physique normally concealed under a stolen ANBU mask and baggy robes.

Haku remembered feeling oddly outraged at the inaccuracy.

_Oh, well,_ the young ninja had concluded after a few minutes of watching. _Most people have it firm in their minds what a hero looks like…and it's not at all what I look like_.

Who was he to screw it up with the truth? Besides, that peoples' concepts of what 'Haku' looked like looked nothing at all like him served his desire for anonymity.

A trio of genin mist-ninja passed him just then with hardly a look in his direction. _If they only knew,_ Haku considered wryly, very thankful that they did not.

'Peace-keeping forces' – that's officially what they were, dispatched from Kirigakure to quell unrest and keep violence and chaos from spreading from Wave Country into the neighboring Land of Water. By 'violence,' that meant the massacre of thirty-some rogue ninja and the destruction of the Great Naruto Bridge. Overall, the pretext was somewhat thin and nowhere near as convincing as it would have been if Lord Hirai's hired swords had pillaged the town. Still, here they were. All things considered, Haku knew, it could be a lot worse.

Most of the higher-ranking mist-shinobi had left already, leaving a core expeditionary comprised of genin with only a handful of chunin to oversee them. Of course, since there wasn't anyone around to fight anymore and nothing much else to do, there was little to justify their staying. Still, the presence of a garrison ended up having some benefits -- it had sent the gangs, triads, drifters, grifters, thieves, creeps, mendicants, and habitual troublemakers on in search of greener pastures, and restored to the town a semblance of order.

Haku, for his part, found the new crop of genin surprisingly agreeable for mist-ninja. The reforms made in their training, post-Zabuza, where they no longer had to fight a classmate to the death in order to graduate, had left intact the new ninjas' youthful qualities, or at any rate had left them free of the various psychological conditions endemic among their elders…the most acute ones anyway.

Haku noticed that most of these young constables fell into one of two categories – ones that hated being here away from home, many for the first time, and were bored out of their minds at having to perform dull police details that they really hadn't been trained for and had no interest at all in; and ones that treated their assignments here as deadly-serious missions on which the very fate of the world depended, and pursued every pick-pocket and shoplifter with the kind of vengeance and zeal usually reserved for those guilty of crimes against humanity.

The army of new workers brought in for the ongoing construction had taken all these complications and strange goings-on in stride. Most of them were only here for the money and had no intention of staying, so the presence of ninja didn't bother them particularly as long as they weren't abusive. Long-time residents, however, were still on edge. They'd accepted the sweeping construction projects that had come to their land as necessary and welcome signs of progress after finally being freed of the plutocrat, Gato, but to have their village become a place where ninja battled it out in the forests and on the streets, blowing up the occasional landmark in the process, had done nothing to settle their nerves. Having a force here from the Hidden Mist Village, whose reputation was hardly sterling, was seen by Wave Country's citizenry as a mixed blessing at best – a promise of 'security' for whatever that meant, but at what cost? After all that had happened and all the Land of Waves had been through, had they only managed to trade one brand of tyranny for another?

Haku cast a glance toward the village's old custom house, currently under renovations as the new magistrate's offices. The name of the woman in charge of Kirigakure's forces in Wave Country, Haku had learned, was none other than Orimi Hirai -- the late ANBU pack-leader, Toru Yamashite's, lieutenant, the one with the 'sparrow-dart', Haku couldn't help but remember.

_Hirai,_ the ninja thought. Sure, it was a common enough name, and the Land of Water was packed with them but in this case Haku assumed, given Lord Kissohamaru Hirai's involvement in all of this, it could not be coincidence.

_One thing at a time,_ he resolved once again. It was no use trying to sort through everything right now.

_It is strange though,_ Haku observed, _why, knowing who I am and where I live, she hasn't sent her men to kill me when she could easily have done so._

At this point, the ninja wasn't quite ready to interpret her inaction to mean she was never going to. Though, if that was the case, the woman had certainly lost out on an opportunity to take him down while he was unconscious…and that didn't seem at all like her.

_Perhaps she means to honor Toru's decision to let me go,_ the teenager considered hopefully, but then his lips pressed into a thin line. _But it's equally likely that she just hasn't gotten around to it yet._

If Lady Orimi Hirai had simply forgotten about him, Haku could hardly blame her for she had kept busy.

One of the first orders the new magistrate had given was for the public execution of two criminals her ninja had apprehended, Zori and Waraji. With the two mercenaries' numerous acts of murder while in Gato's employ having been witnessed by hundreds, burned into their memories in ghastly, vivid detail, the emotionally-charged trial had not lasted long.

Haku's first assumption that the quick, brutal sentence was an extension of Kirigakure's infamous bloodthirstiness lasted until he considered its more practical effects. Gato's few remaining loyalists had been given clear warning that they might want to think about leaving the country. The public executions had served too as an announcement that the power vacuum left by Gato's death had just been filled.

_Kaiza,_ thought Haku as he remembered Tazuna's grandson, Inari, then wondered if the boy had been in the crowd to see the two hired swords who'd killed his adoptive father finally face judgment. Would the boy get any satisfaction, a sense of closure or that justice had finally prevailed?

_No,_ the ninja decided as he considered his own feelings. Even if the head of Kakashi Hatake, the leaf-ninja who'd defeated Zabuza, and those of all of Gato's thugs who'd killed him, had come tumbling down from the platform, having been severed by the flashing steel of the executioner's sword, none of that could restore Zabuza to life or alter in any way Haku's lingering feelings of loss.

But the punishment of those two criminals was just for openers. Afterwards, Orimi had launched almost immediately into a bold and controversial effort towards restoring Wave Country's crippled finances and re-establishing its banks, hospitals, and infrastructure. Controversial, because the way she'd gone about it was by seizing great hunks of Gato's stolen assets, not through any judicial process, but by literally sending her ninja out to seize them wherever they were sequestered: in banks, depositories, municipal buildings, gambling halls, private residences, and other properties throughout the lands of Wave, Water, Fire, Tea, and nearby Nagi Island.

Haku paused and canted his eyes. The implications were stunning.

Because the Land of Waves was becoming something of a nexus for trade, with men, ships and caravans arriving and departing daily, you couldn't help but hear stories of various important ladies and lords, bankers and government officials, their friends, families and associates, having some of their artwork, jewelry and cash reserves confiscated by mist-ninja, or some big-shot gangster being suddenly accosted by Lady Hirai's minions, or the banks of various regions finding their troves lightened and with specific safety-deposit boxes emptied – all with official notices of seizure left behind, documenting what had been taken and why.

Although, evidently, there was some obscure precedent for this, rooted in the pursuit of criminals who fled across national boundaries, the offended parties (and there were a LOT of them) roundly considered these trespasses as illegal incursions at best and acts of war at worst. Magistrate Hirai, surprising everyone, agreed that she had perhaps acted rashly…but only to a degree, then allowed as how she'd respect any legal action taken to reclaim the disputed assets.

In short, it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, and she had pushed that truism to the limit. Orimi had put the burden on Gato's associates and enablers to prove the validity of their claims, rather than taking up that burden herself. Wave Country could now enjoy the fruits of her plan's delicious expediency, but there was a high cost – a real possibility of war.

For a couple of tense weeks, the simultaneously appalled and enthralled populace waited breathlessly to find out if an opposing army was going to show up, or if their new magistrate would face arrest or execution.

Wave Country's restoration began, slowly at first then in earnest, as it became clear that those who'd harbored Gato's stolen monies were more inclined to lick their wounds rather than fight about it or endure long and costly court proceedings that were guaranteed to be embarrassing to them. The man, Gato, had been rich and powerful at one time, and those in a position to be of benefit to him could benefit themselves. But that was then and this is now. Gato, now, was just another dead criminal whose crimes were finally coming to light in places well beyond the borders of Wave Country. No one wanted his stink on them.

_It figures,_ thought Haku with a grin. _I take a couple of weeks off and look what happens._

It seemed like the whole world was changing – caught in the storm of a dizzying, alchemic flux. Invincible titans towered here once, masters of all they surveyed, and down had they come. And now…now people whose names nobody knew a few weeks ago were running the place.

_It's a new world, and there is time,_ thought Haku, plenty of time to heal and think about just how he wished to engage this world.

Today though, the teenager, ninja, orphan, fugitive, laborer, apprentice, sensei and boyfriend had only had two 'missions' to accomplish – go into the forests and find the various plant materials and other substances he'd need to recuperate properly, and then pay a man a visit he'd put off for far too long.

* * *

**Tazuna**

Tazuna stood at the expansive, slant-topped drawing board and poured over a set of blueprints, giving the structural details a critical eye. The designs for the new performance hall featured a vast auditorium clear-spanned by a series of elliptically-arched, tubular-framed trusses. Unlike the Great Naruto Bridge which was designed using repetitive members specifically so that it could be built in a hurry and, as a result, was kind of dull and workmanlike in appearance, _this_ bad boy was going to be sexy.

_But I'm really going to have to double-check these connections and calculations – wind, seismic --_, his thoughts broke off as he glanced up to look out of his trailer-office's grime-veiled window at the organized chaos of the construction site outside. There was a damn-thousand things to worry about, all of them crucial.

A knock rattled on the frame of the open door to his office. Tazuna looked up then grinned cleverly. "You're late," he gruffly informed Haku who stood there, a little mystified by the engineer's curt response. "I expected you long before now. Come on in. Close the door."

The newcomer did as instructed and the man looked over Haku who was so different from when Tazuna had seen him last, laying there on the bridge, apparently dead, in that crazy outfit he'd guessed was 'cool' or something among ninja – a jade green robe worn over a ribbed, turtleneck shirt, and baggy, black, pleated hakima-style pants.

Today the teenager wore roomy hand-me-down jeans, work boots and an old, grey, hooded sweatshirt with a pouch in front. The kid's enviably-lustrous black hair was shorter now and his girlish, almost-angelic features tanner. The hesitant way he moved let the engineer know he hadn't quite recovered from his fight with Juri just yet.

Tazuna met Haku's gaze then bowed, low and reverently.

"Please, Mr. Tazuna," said Haku, clearly uncomfortable. "You've no reason to bow to me."

"Yes I do," the man disagreed bluntly as he straightened. "You saved my grandson's life, twice. You deserve my respect and much more than that. Hell," he chuckled, "I'm not even mad at cha' for blowing up my bridge!"

The young ninja looked down uncertainly – not at all like one of the Land of Water's most-wanted criminals, or 'The Demon's Apprentice', but just a normal kid.

"Listen," Tazuna illuminated, "Inari means _everything_ to me, more than my own life or anything I've done with it. I owe you, Haku. 'You want something? Just name it."

Haku's expression lifted intently as he took a chair, sat down then leaned forward. "Tell me everything," he prevailed.

Tazuna nodded, understanding the young man's simple but important request. The engineer drew two paper cups from a canister, filled them from a water cooler that gurgled and bubbled as it dispensed, then handed one to his visitor. "I don't know 'everything,'" the man admitted with a thoughtful frown as he too took a seat and rubbed his bearded chin. "But for me…it all started when I heard that Gato paid your boss, Momochi, to kill me."


	21. Chapter 21

**The Lady Magistrate Receives Guests;**

**Their Conversations and the Results Thereof**

Orimi Hirai, resplendent in magisterial raiment -- a long, sea-blue waist-coat worn over overlapping, silver-cuffed robes embroidered with fish, coral and sea-monster designs, and with a flared, sapphire-colored, tasseled cap atop her head, looked out her expansive, bay window towards the crowds that had already started to gather around the ribbon-festooned portals of the newly-repaired and reopened Great Naruto Bridge.

The woman was not at all comfortable yet in her new role, her spirits subdued and mired in gloom by the execution of her superior and friend of many years, Toru Yamashite. This all-but-simultaneous divergence in their fates even after a month and a half she still found difficult to bear.

The memory flickered unbidden in her mind, crackly, sporadic and unclear, like a radio signal traveling over vast distances: the memory of the assassin, Krishaney Rahaman. Orimi could only barely recall his face as the monstrous ninja, the Mizukage's personal emissary, stepped toward Toru and her through the fading mist. Both ANBU knew why he'd come.

* * *

_'Just say the word', _Orimi remembered whispering to her stout commander while dropping her hand to her hip where her weapon, the razor-edged sparrow-dart, rested,_ 'and he's dead!' _That had been the first time in her patriot's life that she'd ever contemplated an act of treason against her own Hidden Village, although she hadn't thought about it like that at the time.

Toru had only looked back at her, his black-framed, bottle-thick glasses making his eyes look large, bulgy and penetrating, and shook his head._ 'Stand down, Orimi,' _he'd said in low, gruff growl.

Another first then as the woman considered outright mutiny, a deliberate refusal of an order given by her commanding officer, but the ANBU captain put a heavy, reassuring hand on her shoulder.

_'Who's going to be in charge of the team if we both die,' _he'd ventured smoothly, musing in a confidential tone, _'Yukimasa, Aya, Eiji? You KNOW what a train-wreck that would be.'_

The veteran kunoichi had almost hurt something trying not to cry; lips trembling over clenched teeth. Maudlin displays of emotion like this clashed hard against her Hirai clan ethos, which favored stoicism.

_'Don't worry, Orimi,' _offered Toru with a casual, fatalistic grin._ 'I kind of saw this coming. You know,' _he muttered distantly, deliberately ignoring his killer's ponderous approach,_ 'when I was a genin, I thought the Mizukage and his councilors were like, I don't know, heroes or something; I'm talking like right out of mythology, smart…strong, brave, and dedicated above all to Kirigakure no Sato and the Land of Water._

_'But that was a long time ago,_' the man continued, almost laughing at the way he used to be._ 'I've known for awhile now, years and years, that they're only flawed human beings like the rest of us, a lot of the time WORSE than the rest of us, and that us ninja serve their greed and cowardice a whole lot more often than we serve our country.'_

The ANBU Captain's eyes narrowed then as he scowled. _'But I stayed on anyway, didn't I. Huh,' _Toru grunted,_ 'and I even dared to think there was something noble about my loyalty.'_

Orimi, trembling tensely and still ready to fight, retorted forcefully,_ 'We swore oaths, Toru!'_

_'But we still have eyes to see and minds to reason, don't we?_' Toru gave her a look._ 'You see, Orimi, ever since the moment I could see through the fiction; see our 'illustrious' leader for who and what he was, and STILL chose to follow him, from that moment on his failings became mine; his decisions, mine; his mistakes, mine,' _the ANBU captain expressed a desolate sigh, _'and his crimes…mine. After all, without people like me backing him up, what is he – just a guy in a fancy hat._

_'And now he's decided he needs to have me killed. After all the civil wars, then the genocide against those who possessed the blood-gift, and the purges that followed that; after so many OTHERS have died at his word, am I now supposed to complain how unfair it is? No,' _the big ninja answered._ 'I can't do it._

_'And frankly,' _Toru added, smiling grimly,_ ' if that kid, Haku, can own up to his past and face destiny with grace right up to the end, then, sure as sh-t, I should be able to.'_

* * *

Orimi, standing there in her office as if she'd just then materialized, gulped and shook herself free of the memory -- it hurt too much to recall.

She WAS loyal to her former pack-leader though, wasn't she, the ninja asked herself, after six years of learning Toru's strange brand of wisdom and facing death at his side? So what did that mean? Must she now feel compelled to avenge herself against her wicked and craven lord, the Mizukage, and the whole Land of Water? That seemed a touch extravagant, maybe even vain…like Zabuza Momochi had been. Or was it more proper to live on as her departed sensei would have wished?

The kunoichi strayed from the window, slipping from the sunlight, then walked along her office's tall, wood-paneled walls to where a small altar hung. Atop it was a framed photograph of the late ANBU captain along with an offering of fruit and anise seeds. Taking a deep breath, Orimi lit two sticks of mild incense and set them in place in a bowl alongside the rest, then pressed her hands together and bowed her head in reverent remembrance.

The man's expression in that picture was enough to make Orimi feel better, and she smiled at all the obscenities she felt sure Toru would scream in her face if she cast aside this promotion and martyred herself on his behalf.

Orimi HAD always wanted to advance, to BE somebody and DO important things. Didn't everyone? The kunoichi shut her eyes, overwhelmed momentarily by life's cruel ironies which stung almost beyond bearing. Success was hardly worth the trouble without those you cared about around to share it with.

'Wave Country', she recalled distinctly as her fingers brushed absently against her round face, 'Mission to Wave Country', that was the title of the briefing. What followed had been a set of simple instructions directing Toru's ANBU team to seek and destroy at whatever the cost, the traitor, Zabuza, and his young protégé, Haku.

Had anyone told her at the time what the outcome would be, Orimi never would have believed it. Her Pack-Leader, Toru, executed for no other reason than the Mizukage was suspicious and afraid of his own jonin because of what the so-called 'Demon of the Hidden Mist' had done; and herself – promoted to magistrate and placed in charge of Wave County's newly-established security forces, with the rest of the team disbanded.

Eiji Tohei had been called back to Kirigakure for further training, and Aya sent to the Village's newly-established medical corps. Yukimasa had gone on to a cushy-sounding senior staff position with the Councilor, Lady Chinami Inoue, who, as Orimi had learned from back-channels, had initiated this partial takeover of Wave Country with the Mizukage's assent.

So…just like that, Orimi found herself alone and in command.

Somewhat surprising, an added complication -- the seal and signature on the official documents of her promotion were those of her great-grandfather, Councilor Kissohamaru Hirai.

How long had it been since she'd even SEEN the grand old man? the Magistrate wondered. Ten years at least, she thought, since cousin Nishii's wedding. The Hirai clan was huge, so she didn't expect regular contact. Although the woman distinctly remembered the sting she'd felt when she'd overheard that the clan Patriarch hadn't thought much of her decision to try out for the ANBU. 'Glorified blood-hounds', was what he'd said, 'blunt instruments of policy.'

At the back of her mind Orimi wondered if it was her relationship to the august ninja lord alone that had won her this post. Whether the assumption was true or not, she had her work cut out to overcome the appearance of blatant nepotism.

The woman's eyes flickered sideways then as one of her young bodyguards, Utako, let her know that her morning's first appointment was waiting, and so Orimi turned away from the altar to get into character.

Magistrate Hirai looked over the three-man team she'd picked, more or less at random from her ranks, to protect her and regretted not having given the matter greater consideration. Chizuzu…something or other, Orimi always had trouble remembering her last name, meant well but had the attention span of a gnat. Daigo Tenge, was a decently-focused young man, but needed to lighten up a little. Like the new magistrate herself, the boy came from long-established, very old-school ninja clan, so that part was going to take time if it ever happened at all. Utako Ito was hard to read. That she was the quiet type didn't bother Orimi so much as _why_, and hoped it was nothing more than typical adolescent reticence.

This was the first girl-dominated squad Orimi had ever encountered, and so far hadn't detected any meaningful differences between them and their male-centric counterparts, though she suspected Daigo would be in for some singularly brutal crap further down the line.

_Poor guy,_ she thought, only half-sarcastically, _doesn't know what he's in for. _

It didn't seem to Orimi like it had been that long since she herself had graduated from the Mist's Martial School but these three genin, who were all between twelve and thirteen, were already making her feel old well beyond her years -- like a grandmother!

Daigo and Utako, still slightly drowsy from the earliness of the hour, parted a pair of paneled double-doors and ushered in the Magistrate's guests.

"Ah, good morning Miss Okore," greeted Orimi with the calm, confident tenor she felt expected of her, "Mr. Sato and Mister…?"

"Tazuna," the grumpy-looking oldest of the visitors declared. "Just call me Tazuna, Ma'am. Everybody does."

Orimi studied the three discreetly as they all sat down then exchanged pleasantries over tea.

Miss Keiya Okore was the most physically striking of her guests – a short woman with tightly-braided jet hair, dark skin, with features and accents that indicated clearly that she hailed from very far away; a land more exotic than Orimi had ever visited. Almost as if to counter that, she wore a simple, conservative dress in tasteful, muted earth-tones gathered with a sash around her admirably slender waist.

Her business partner, Yoichiro Saito, was tall, thick and fleshy, with remnants of thinning brown hair, and wore a tailored, deep blue suit over a striped, buttoned-down shirt.

Tazuna, Orimi knew of, of course, but had never met before. He was a local guy, a civil and structural engineer by education, but was in himself the tip of a huge wedge of economic power and industry, of which his two companions were a part. In her life, Orimi had met few people like this grey-haired, powerfully-built bridge-builder, around which so much revolved. It had been he who'd drawn Gato's ire enough to sic Zabuza and Haku on him in the first place, and who'd had the wherewithal to hire that ninja team from the Hidden Leaf Village, Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, and their sensei, the copy-ninja, Kakashi Hatake, to protect him.

_If not for him,_ Orimi couldn't help but muse, _if not for him._

It was hard for the woman not to blame Tazuna for all that had transpired. There was such a satisfying convenience in taking the sum of all of her life's complexities, the deaths, tragedies and abrupt changes, and ascribe them to this one man. But below the superficiality of things, Orimi realized it was not that simple.

The two men, Tazuna and Saito, clearly had little patience just for slow custom, and bided their time, grunting on occasion, but otherwise contributing nothing to the conversation.

"Well," offered Orimi in the proper order. "What is it you wished to see me about this morning? You left my adjutant with the impression that your need was quite urgent."

Yoichiro smiled tightly. "About this latest edict," he began and brought out the notice one of Orimi's genin had served him with. The businessman's brow lifted expressively. "You can't be serious?"

Inwardly, Orimi rolled her eyes. _Why no,_ she thought, _I always issue edicts I don't intend to enforce. I just sit here all day with nothing better to do._ "It's true, I'm afraid," she began politely. "The order was issued by a majority of Water Country's Daimyo. I hope you understand there's nothing I can do."

"But this is…this is an injunction against the use of machinery of practically every sort – loaders, back-hoes, spreaders, mixers," the man went on then looked up, his expression incredulous, "even dump-trucks and flatbeds!"

Orimi pressed her palms together and nodded sagely.

"Lady Magistrate, you have to understand what we're trying to do here. We're running a major construction operation, and it can't be done without all those things. Take just ONE steel beam, just for example," Mr. Saito illustrated, taking up a professorial air which Orimi did not at all appreciate, "well, that could weigh thirty to fifty pounds per linear foot. So if you have a thirty-foot long span, then --."

"Mr. Saito --," the Magistrate attempted delicately to interrupt.

"Or think about those reinforced-concrete double-tees we used to build The Great Naruto Bridge! They're huge! And heavy! You can't move one of those by hand. And all the site-work and earth-moving; digging trenches for power, water, sewer, gas and everything else – what are we supposed to use to excavate hundreds of cubic yards of dirt, shovels?"

"And I sympathize, but --."

"Plus, we've got schedules to keep," Saito persisted. "Having the bridge out for so long alone set us back --."

"Mr. Saito!" the kunoichi snapped as softly as she could and still break in. "I understand your position, I really do," Orimi began in a semblance of diplomacy. "Now you must understand mine. Prohibitions-against and limitations-on specified technologies are ages-old. They were part of the treaties signed between the Land of Water and all the other Elemental Countries, and include all provinces, protectorates and, I quote, 'territories under the influence of any power included as a signatory'. The provisions of these treaties keep us out of war. They're written in stone," the Magistrate emphasized with a flourish. "They were in place long before I arrived on the scene and will remain long after I leave.

"Having said all that," Orimi concluded in a stern voice so as to leave no doubt, "I absolutely intend to enforce this edict."

Tazuna, sitting back with his hands rested behind his head, blurted carelessly: "Told ya'!"

Saito gave the man a withering look then frowned seriously. Here was a man clearly unused to being told 'no'.

"Lady Magistrate," Kieya prevailed softly before her companion could fire up again. "I do hope you will forgive our forwardness. We don't at all mean to be presumptive, but we are desperate. Is there nothing you can do?"

The ANBU collected herself and placed her arms coolly on the top of her desk. "I have taken the liberty on your behalf," she explained in a conciliatory tone, "to petition the lords of The Land of Water for a variance."

"Oh!" piped Saito, his mood changing in an instant from dismay to delight. "Well, that's fine then," he said with a smile. "We'll get a variance."

"No," Orimi clarified, shaking her head. "You won't. If you wished to have special permission to use otherwise-prohibited technologies for a specified time then you should have talked to all the daimyos' interior ministries, stroked egos, soothed feeling and offered --," she stumbled, not wanting to use the word 'bribe', "suitable and substantial consideration."

Saito stared at her, mystified. "Then what's the point --?"

Miss Okore touched him lightly on the shoulder, then asked Orimi: "How long a time does that give us?"

The Magistrate frowned in thought. "My messengers should take two weeks to deliver my requests; I told them not to rush. The various officials involved will take probably thirty days to answer. Another two weeks back…"

"Eight weeks," said Sato like a death sentence. His shoulders slumped. "It's not enough time. It's nowhere NEAR enough."

"I'm sorry," offered Orimi sincerely, "that's all I can do. When your request is denied, I'll have no choice but to enforce the edict. Any prohibited equipment still present in the Land of Waves will be seized, by force if that's what it comes to, then dumped into the sea."

Saito shook his ruddy-colored, balding head. "It's barbaric!" he spat in disgust.

The Magistrate winced at this. "Will you stop your whining!" Orimi hissed back, her patience fraying, unused to such backbiting commentary. Aside from the rogue ninja and sundry criminals she'd encountered over her years with the ANBU, everyone else she'd ever known or interacted with since birth FOLLOWED ORDERS. "All this is because of you anyway," she threw back testily. "You move in here, looking to cash in, and practically take over the place, except you don't spend even a single ryo for security. What did you think was going to happen when you bring in men by the thousands and money by the cart-load? Did you think nobody would want a piece, or that all those guys who worked for Gato would just go away? There was an entire army of mercenaries gearing up to lay waste to this place, in case you've forgotten," the woman scolded them. "And they would have too, if not for my ANBU team's intervention. If anything, you should be grateful that we're here risking our lives on your behalf."

Sato's face wriggled as he tried to limit his reaction. "Kirigakure is hardly here for our benefit," the man countered sourly. "And as you illustrated earlier, we certainly have a price to pay – being subject to your rule."

"For the record," Tazuna asserted himself suddenly, "not all of us are looking to 'cash in', as you put it. I LIVE here, so does my daughter and grandchild; that means something to me." The man's stern gaze swept between the Magistrate and his own companions. "I didn't put my life on the line against Gato's gang or Zabuza Momochi himself so I could get rich; I did it because I want the Land of Waves to be a place of spirit and dignity – a place where life has value."

The engineer cocked his head at Okore and Saito. "This is just an investment opportunity for them. Sure, maybe there's something more high-minded and, what-you-call, 'altruistic' behind their reasons why, but they're not FROM here." The man looked over his glasses at Orimi and said plainly: "Neither are you! As for gratitude, we'll see. We all know that at some point, Kirigakure will either decide to leave, HAVE to leave…or take over completely. So you see: it's hard to tell how sloppy we should get in thanking you when we don't know how it's all going to work out."

Tense, thick silence engulfed the room. Even Lady Hirai's bodyguards, Chizuzu, Daigo and Utako, who stood at the back and sides of the room, made an effort not to breathe too loudly.

"If I may," said Keiya Okore, anxious to restore a less contrary atmosphere, "since it appears we are all to coexist in this land for the immediate future, I propose it would be helpful to speak for a moment on those matters on which we agree. Lady Magistrate," the woman ventured with a professional's delicacy, "it is true that the promise of profit drives our enterprise. However, being that the money our investors have put up is at great risk, does it not make sense that the rewards should be equally great for having undertaken that risk if these projects turn out successfully?"

Orimi shrugged. "Sure, why not," she acquiesced blandly. The ANBU would not say 'no' to something that sounded perfectly reasonable but neither would she commit to it, knowing that logic was not a reflection of reality but only a tool that had many purposes.

"Since it seems we must go through the proper channels in the Land of Water before we can proceed as we wish to then that is what we shall do, however difficult. We understand, of course, that we have to abide by your rules even if we find them inconvenient," the short, dark-hued woman offered the Magistrate, then turned to Tazuna, "and that we must also be sympathetic and accommodating to the aspirations of those who have roots here." Smiling brightly, she returned to the mist-ninja. "As for security, we are indeed thankful for your sincere efforts, and are not at all oblivious to its necessity. After all…here you are."

Orimi's expression blanked as it felt to her that she'd just slipped from the shallow end of the pool to the deep. Toru had warned her that this Okore woman spoke like she had connections.

"So," the kunoichi ventured, hoping she'd just misread the small woman's inflection, "you knew we'd come."

Keiya nodded, though not proudly. "There's much too much ventured here to let it go unguarded. Although it was my hope that your Mr. Yamashite would be appointed magistrate. I conversed with him once, only briefly, but it was enough to convince me of the quality his character, that he had an open mind in some respects and that we could trust him." Her eyes went toward the small altar Orimi had set up in his memory, then fell away as if she thought that too delicate a subject to broach any further. "Now that we are without him," intoned Miss Okore, acknowledging in her voice how subservient they all were to fate, "we hope that we may place our trust in you."

_Terrific,_ Orimi pondered glumly once her guests had left. There was hardly enough time to really digest what had just transpired in the first meeting when it was time for a second. This one promised to be even more fun, being with the representatives of three angry Fire Country daimyo, accompanied by an emissary from their Hidden Leaf Village -- a jonin kunoichi named Anko Mitarashi.

"Remind me," the Magistrate told one of her young genin bodyguards, Utako, with deadly seriousness, "never, ever again schedule a meeting before ten."

* * *

The visiting leaf-ninja, Anko, managed to piss Orimi off even before she'd cleared the threshold. She was lithe and beautiful in a flamboyant, tomboy sort of way, with an athletic, curvaceous figure that immediately made Orimi feel compelled to go on a diet. In she walked, like she owned the place, dressed for the occasion in her finest fishnet worn beneath a tan trench-coat.

Orimi raised an eyebrow and held back an expression of greater disbelief. _Does that pass for a __regulation__ uniform in Konohagakure?_ she wondered snidely, but still had to give her visitor some respect for having come alone.

Daigo's eyes bugged as he looked over the somewhat-strange rival kunoichi with both personal interest and as a perspective adversary, whereupon Anko returned a cavalier glance that let the boy know he wouldn't be any more than a snack for her…either way you wanted to take it.

Behind the leaf-ninja trailed the three representatives of offended parties that were either too busy, too cowardly or otherwise couldn't be bothered to come in person.

Orimi leaned back, blew out a breath and mentally cracked open a cold one. This was going to take awhile. Really, she could give a crap about what any of these sock-puppets thought…but Anko, Anko was a different story. From her the Magistrate presumed she'd learn if her master, the Hokage, intended an attack in reprisal for Orimi's cross-border raids, which she'd initiated to reclaim assets bled from the Land of Waves by Gato's criminal enterprises. It had seemed like a wonderful idea at the time, and coincided nicely with the new Magistrate's sense of propriety – take back what had been stolen, and use the money to re-establish what had fallen into ruin. It made sense! There was even a legal precedent, at least if considered from the right frame of reference.

In retrospect, Orimi considered, it might have been more prudent to draw the line at Fire Country's borders.

After a perfunctory exchange of courtesies, the three visitors vented their outrage in no uncertain terms at Orimi's having sent ninja to steal from their masters. Anko, for her part, merely stood in the background with a weary, distracted expression that conveyed nothing except that she didn't want to be here.

As the representatives continued on for the better part of an hour, getting bolder with their criticisms and dismissing the Magistrate's attempts to consol them, the ANBU found herself getting progressively angrier. If all she had to do was sit there and be yelled at in order to avoid conflict with Konohagakure no Sato, then she was more than willing to do that. But all things had their limit, and when the first hour passed the woman had reached hers.

"Enough!" shouted Orimi at last, startling her guests and fixing the leaf-ninja's attention for the first time. "You've all made your points quite clear. Now allow me to make mine," she enunciated more for Anko's benefit than the three. "The treaty that exists between the Elemental Countries allows me to follow criminals across international boundaries."

The mist-ninja drew herself up before continuing, "In other words: if you steal my coin purse, I can follow you…all the way into Fire Country if that's where you go. If you drop it on the ground, am I supposed to leave it there? We all know the answer to that, is no. It's been well-established through precedent that I can reclaim stolen goods, or abducted persons or livestock for that matter. It follows then, by my interpretation as magistrate, that should you hand my stolen purse to a friend for safe-keeping, that I can take it from the friend. And if you put the money you find in it in a bank, then I can (and will!) take it from the bank.

"In case you're still unclear on the concept – there are no series of transactions, no processes however elaborate, which can turn Gato's money clean."

Orimi crossed her arms firmly; her stare dared the three to say something. "Being that I have nothing more to say on this matter, and have heard from you all I care to, I'll just call this meeting to a close." The woman threw a look at Anko. "Unless, of course, the representative from the Hidden Leaf Village has something to add?"

Anko raised her hand benignly and shook her head. "Nah," she offered bluntly, "I'm good."

Orimi suppressed a grimace. No glimpses of the Hokage's plans were forthcoming, and really, it didn't look like this jonin knew anything about them anyway. "Very well, then."

"Lady Magistrate?" Anko inquired, at which Orimi tensed.

"Yes, Miss Mitarashi?"

"Thanks for seeing us. Is there a good place to eat around here?"

The mist-ANBU cocked her head curiously at this. "I'm sorry?"

Anko grinned and rubbed the back of her head. "It's a long way back to the Hidden Leaf Village and I'd like to grab a bite before I go," she explained. "I'm kind of in a hurry too. I've got chunin exams to proctor, and I CAN'T be late."

Orimi paused in thought, wondering if there was a test of some sort, but decided to take her at face value. "Well…there's a lot of places on the south and west ends of the construction," the Magistrate answered uncertainly. "Nothing fancy as yet…"

"Dango?" the jonin specified. "Dumplings?"

"Yeah," answered Orimi after a moment's thought, "a place called Sun Palace just opened down the block. It's kind of greasy and draws a rough crowd but --."

"Hey! Hey, don't OVERSELL me," the woman piped with an eager, sanguine smile then paced out, leaving behind the three she was supposed to be guarding.

Orimi's cross look was enough to send them scampering after her, with the Magistrate's three mist-genin following behind to make sure they caught up.

_What the hell's that Hokage thinking,_ the ANBU pondered, _sending a ninja who couldn't care less about her own mission?_ Her brow rose as the question seemed to answer itself. _Unless, _she rolled the idea around in her mind, _that IS the message._

_Of course,_ Orimi concluded with a smirk. _He has no interest at all in fighting over some two-bit daimyos' stolen treasures._

But Anko had been strong and confident too, enough to venture alone into a land controlled by a rival ninja village's garrison. _Ah,_ the Magistrate discerned. _In other words, don't think you can make a habit of trespassing. Right, old man, I think I got cha'._

* * *

Orimi sat back in her chair and steepled her hands, head tilted back meditatively. _It's going to be a long tour of duty,_ she was beginning to realize. Gradually, the ninja grew aware of her three recently-returned genin who waited just a little too anxiously.

"Speak," she urged them.

"Yeah, um," began Daigo in the official-sounding tough-guy voice that was his default, "there's some GUY here to see you, Lady Orimi."

_Mmm,_ thought Orimi,_ how very informative._ Though she knew from the way he'd said it that it was some poor bastard he wanted to beat up.

"But he seems really nice!" added Chizuzu, whose tone illuminated that the visitor was young and attractive.

Orimi winced and tried to remember if she'd been this naïve at that age.

"We would've told him to piss-off, but he said he knows you," Utako offered, a little more helpfully. "'Said his name's Hiroo Okame."

The Magistrate's eyes widened. _That's…that's the alias Haku was using,_ the woman remembered with a foreboding chill. _Could it really be HIM again?_ Orimi cast her thoughts back to the bloody and bedraggled wraith she remembered, wandering away again at liberty after Toru had released him, off into the mists never to be seen again, or so she'd assumed.

_What could Haku want here? That kid's kinda strange – is he just here because he's feeling sentimental or something,_ her dark eyes narrowed fiercely, _or is he here to kill everyone in the place?_ With the forces she had on hand, there wasn't much that could stop him.

"Lady Magistrate?" Chizuzu interrupted nervously. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," Orimi managed in a cool voice. "I do know him. Please, send him in."

The woman's expression hardened slightly. _Damn it if I'm going to tremble in fear of some punk kid…in my own office no less,_ she thought, then patted herself to check the sparrow-dart concealed beneath her robes.

Her three young ninja returned. With them, surely enough, walked Haku, The Demon's Apprentice, hardly looking at all the worse for the terrible fight he'd been in. The teenager smiled with awkward grace, his hands clasped in front of him. For whatever reason, his wardrobe had returned to the sorts of things he'd worn while laying-low: a grey, hooded jacket with a pouch in front, baggy jeans and work boots.

Orimi spared a glance at her guards' un-reassuring expressions. Daigo stared at the newcomer with a challenging air of superiority, like some mountain ram whose only mission in life was to butt heads with someone equally stupid. Chizuzu smiled demurely, enchanted by her guest's sweet face, and gestured for Haku to come in, while Utako looked on somewhat bored and detached from it all. It was clear that none of them had a clue who this guy was; that he was Zabuza Momochi's sole disciple, dangerous criminal and fugitive, whose master had come within inches of assassinating their lord, the Mizukage!

_F-ck!_ Orimi grumbled as she realized: _I'll bet they didn't even THINK to check him for weapons. _

A hired servant brought in a fresh pot of tea while Orimi rose and greeted her visitor with a polite bow. "Mr. Okame," she offered placidly. "What an unexpected pleasure to see you again."

Haku returned her bow. "Thank you, Lady Magistrate. And thank you for receiving me."

_He certainly seems composed if he came here to kill me,_ she thought, then looked again to her guards. As green as they were, if there was a fight, they'd probably just get in the way. She signaled discreetly for them to go, but they didn't catch it.

Suppressing a sigh, Orimi looked over at them. "Chizuzu, Daigo, Utako." The three looked at her as she gestured. "Wait outside, if you please."

Both Magistrate and Demon's Apprentice waited until the three guards had gone, and then heard the doors close and the latch click.

"You look good, Haku," continued Orimi conversationally as she took a seat behind her desk. Though the woman seemed at ease, a subtle chakra flow prepared her organs and muscles for the fight of her life. "I'm pleased to see you've recovered so soon."

"And you, Lady Orimi," began Haku as his head lifted toward the scent of incense in the air and his eyes fell on Toru Yamashite's photograph. The sight of it silenced him. After a moment, the boy looked back at the kunoichi. "I'm sorry for your loss," he offered and bowed his head.

Orimi prickled at the sarcasm she expected, considering who Haku was, yet the young ninja's voice and manner slowly convinced the Magistrate that he was serious. With her temper cooled, she nodded in acceptance of her former quarry's consolations. "And yours," she managed with equal reverence, then paused.

"I confess though," said Orimi at length, "this comes as something of a surprise. I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

Haku smiled with gentle understanding. "I like it here," he confessed. "The Land of Waves has a good…energy, I don't know how else to put it. It's going through a difficult period of change right now and I'm interested to see how it turns out, maybe even being a part of it. There's opportunity here and the weather suits me, but mostly," he leaned forward, his grey eyes filled with meaning as he intoned: "it's the people."

Orimi nodded and hummed thoughtfully, though in truth she found herself a little taken aback. _What the hell am I supposed to say to that?_ she wondered. "Ah, how are the Tezukas', well I trust?"

"Oh, yes, very well," the teenager answered genially, then slipped in: "everyone's still getting used to these new security arrangements."

"Doubtless," agreed Orimi who studied the kid's face and body language. If Haku did intend to go on a Zabuza-esque rampage, he sure was good at hiding it. But maybe, just maybe, he had some other reason for coming. He seemed nervous but not like he was psyching himself up. _Ok,_ she decided, _I'll bite._

"So, Haku," the Lady Magistrate asked and leaned forward slyly, cognizant again of her sparrow-dart. At such close range, the weapon had both advantages and disadvantages which the kunoichi assumed Haku would know also. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

The teenager looked away then looked back, drew a calming breath and explained: "I was…dismissed from my job. The foreman was not very understanding of my being away for several weeks without explanation when I showed up for work this morning. So I thought I'd ask," his eyes rose toward hers, "if…_you_ had any positions available?"

Orimi blinked, so nonplussed at the idea that she almost spilled her tea and quickly had to set it down. _What, is he KIDDING; asking ME for a job?! _she thought, frowned and sat back in her chair, torn between anger and laughter.

It was out of a question, of course...completely ludicrous.

_Just what the HELL are you thinking_? the question boiled in her mind._ Is there ANYTHING in our history that would make you think it's ok even to ASK something like that?_

The woman straightened to tell him, the blunt words forming as she opened her mouth to say them, but then she paused. On impulse, and trusting the young fugitive more perhaps than she should, the ninja turned fully around to look up at the photograph of her departed Pack-Leader, Toru.

_Although…if I'm not going to kill him, and it seems as though I'm not, it would be a good way to keep track of him,_ Orimi ventured, at least recognizing the existence of counter-arguments. _And if he's serious, he'd be pretty handy to have around…especially when I got so many people pissed-off at me._

The woman laughed at herself. _Is this really your decision process? A few weeks ago you would have killed him on the spot…or tried to._

_Yeah, well, _she pointed out as part of a developing mental back-and-forth,_ kind of a lot's happened since then._

_He's a damn WANTED CRIMINAL!_ a voice roared from the depths of her mind. _Not at all, _another disagreed. _Haku WAS a wanted criminal but he's dead now, officially. THIS is Hiroo Okame._

Orimi's eyes narrowed at the audacity of her own argument. _And I'm sure that rationalization will go over great at your court-martial, if you even GET a court martial._

_Please! It's not like you've been trying to play it safe so far. You already figured out that won't save you necessarily. Look: before you sits probably the most talented ninja you've ever met, and you're, what, going to kick him to the curb? That's pretty freakin' weak._

In the back of her mind, left unvoiced, was the realization not just of who, but what this boy was – the last survivor of a clan that had been hunted to near-extinction, convenient scapegoats for a country wallowing in misery after years of murderous excess. People still feared those who possessed the kekkei-genkai, holding them to blame for the tragedies that had befallen the Land of Water, but Orimi had always had the sense for the truth – that they weren't to blame any more than anyone else; and that their lives had only been easy sacrifices for others to make.

Additionally, and much closer to home, Orimi was only just now starting to glimpse the scale and complexity of the game she now found herself playing. The rules were uncertain, shifting randomly. The stakes were life and death, and the other players seated at the table included Kieya Okore and those unseen parties she represented, both of Kirigakure's councilors, the Mizukage himself and, if she wasn't more careful, the Hokage of the Hidden Leaf Village.

_Sounds like a good way to get killed,_ the woman summarized. _Yeah, you could definitely use some stronger shinobi on your side._

_But then too,_ Orimi thought finally, _Haku seems to actually CARE about this place and he's offering you his help. Are you really going to say 'no'?_

The Magistrate, having settled on yet another question that seemed to answer itself, shared a grin with Toru's photograph, blaming HIM for this, then turned back towards Haku who was on pins and needles after having waited so long for a response.

Orimi Hirai folded her arms and asked: "do you have any experience?"

Zabuza's former student looked up with restrained surprise then nodded, smiling slightly. "Yes, Ma-am, eight years," he offered.

"References?"

Haku's grey eyes dipped then rose toward hers. "You," he offered, "assuming no hard feelings."

"When can you start?"

"Tomorrow," Haku announced and beamed.

"Oh?" replied Orimi, feigning shock, "not today?"

The kid shook his head. "There's one last thing I need to do – a personal matter I've been putting off. Besides, the rededication of The Great Naruto Bridge is at sunset. I'd hate to miss it."

The Magistrate smiled. It was a much more 'normal' sort of explanation than she'd expected. "That's fine then. Tomorrow's soon enough," Orimi said then added with a wily, conspiratorial grin, "_Constable_ Okame."

* * *

**Haku**

Looking by chance in at the open window  
I saw my own self seated in his chair  
With gaze abstracted, furrowed forehead,  
Unkempt hair.

I thought that I had suddenly come to die,  
That to a cold corpse this was my farewell,  
Until the pen moved slowly upon paper  
And tears fell.

He had written a name, yours, in printed letters:  
One word on which bemusedly to pore  
No protest, no desire, your naked name,  
Nothing more.

Would it be tomorrow, would it be next year?  
But the vision was not false, this much I knew;  
And I turned angrily from the open window

Aghast at you.

Why never a warning, either by speech or look,  
That the love you cruelly gave me could not last?  
Already it was too late: the bait swallowed,  
The hook fast.

--David Sylvian, Upon This Earth.

* * *

Haku sat in the middle of the Tezukas' basement and stared bleakly at the blank sheet of paper, with only his fluffy, new pet rabbit he'd named 'Shiro' for company.

When he'd come home from Orimi Hirai's offices, full of enthusiasm and purpose, the ninja had cleared off the worktable that served as his bed and brought up a stool. Being Uncle Maceo's studio, Haku had quickly found all he needed: a roll of calligraphy paper, ink, and an entire set of brushes to choose from. He'd then taken a breath, sat down, and set to work on this letter bound for the Hidden Leaf Village and addressed…to Naruto Uzumaki.

His first draft had started off as a long and rambling description of everything that had happened to him: every thought, feeling and observation from the moment he'd lost consciousness at the first battle of the bridge until now. But he hadn't gone very far with that. Horrified, the ninja gaped at the crowded page, crumpled it up, crushed it into a ball, crushed it some more, then side-armed it across the room.

Haku's second try had began a little better, a more condensed iteration, but still seemed like it was developing into something a bit overly long and intimate to send to someone you really only barely knew.

_And why would Naruto even care_, the teenager vacillated. _It's not like we were ever friends, not really. Anyway, just because you feel connected to him in some way doesn't mean he feels the same way about you._

The young shinobi thought back to the first time he'd seen Naruto, there on the road to the Land of Waves where Zabuza had confronted them. '_Sit this one out,'_ Zabuza had commanded his apprentice earlier. _'I can tell your heart isn't in it, Haku, and besides, I want their leader all to myself.'_

Neither of them believed this team from Konoha capable of defeating Zabuza. When they did, that's when Haku had intervened by 'killing' his master with a pair of expertly-placed senbon to the neck then laying claim to the body as the masked ANBU hunter-ninja he portrayed.

Having weathered a long, tense fight with The Demon of the Hidden Mist, Naruto had been apoplectic at the ease with which Haku had stopped the infamous jonin. The yellow-haired leaf ninja had taken it as a personal condemnation of all the hard work and training he'd dedicated himself to.

_'He killed Zabuza, who wasn't exactly a pushover, but still got taken out by a guy who's only about my age! Like it was nothing!' _the boy had railed, red-faced in frustration. _'What, do we SUCK or something?!'_

Haku chuckled at the remembrance.

_But maybe something shorter and more to-the-point WOULD be more appropriate,_ he considered, ran a hand through his black hair, then jotted in a series of quick brushstrokes:

**Naruto:**

**I'm alive, just wanted you to know.**

**--Haku**

There was something satisfying about the brevity of that, but it still didn't seem right. Why bother to write anything at all if it's THAT short? Again, the teenager crumpled up the letter and tossed it away.

_But why say anything more?_ the question drifted through Haku's mind.

This was impossible! How was he supposed to even begin writing something when he had no idea how the person going to read it would react? Would Naruto be MOVED? Would he even REMEMBER who Haku was? Would he just LAUGH and toss the letter AWAY?!

The ninja hung his head in exasperation.

It seemed like everyone who'd encountered Naruto remembered him fondly. When Haku had gone to see Tazuna to ask him about everything that had happened before, during and after the first battle at the bridge the engineer had been more than happy to tell him. Hearing Naruto's words had shaken Haku – especially the blond genin's impassioned declaration he'd lashed Zabuza with after his apprentice's apparent death at the hands of Kakashi. Never could the usually shy and reserved teenager have imagined that another could voice his own thoughts so completely.

"Someone like that," muttered Haku aloud, "so courageous, kind and open-hearted, must have DOZENS of friends…and would hardly be in great need of another."

_Like Sasuke Uchiha,_ the ninja remembered as a poignant example. So dearly in his heart did the raven-haired leaf-ninja care for his friend that he'd thrown himself into the path of Haku's senbon in a stunningly-heroic and touching act of self-sacrifice.

_To have friends like that!_ Haku mused with a pang, as he suddenly and acutely missed never having gone to the Leaf Village's training academy as they had. _Friends,_ the shinobi waxed, so moved by the poetic power of the notion that his eyes welled and his heart melted,_ willing to risk their very lives for each other; united by a bond that can never be broken._

With hindsight, the young ninja felt a lot better now about not having killed Sasuke. For a long time, Haku had thought of that as just another way he'd let Zabuza down, just another instance of his own soft heart interfering. But having heard how relieved Naruto and especially Sakura had been, Haku wondered if he'd be able to live with himself had he killed the genin.

Even Tazuna had thanked him.

_'Ninja,'_ the engineer had then added after a thoughtful pause. _'To tell the truth, I never saw what the big deal was. You do all that training and you got all this mystique, but really, I never saw you guys as anything more than hired muscle.'_ Haku had only shrugged, not in the mood to argue, and had almost missed the change in the man's expression. _'But I see now that there's something to it. They learned a lot more at ninja school than just a bunch of tricks. Naruto, Kakashi and the rest were willing to fight for a cause that was not theirs because they thought it was the right thing to do, just like you fought for Zabuza, the man you cared for and who, as it turned out, cared about you too.'_ The grandfather had then given him an avuncular grin, acknowledging, _'Not all ninja are good ones, of course, but I can see how the training together with the right sensei can really bring out the best in someone.'_ Haku could only nod obligingly, that's all he'd been able to do, and hadn't been at all sure if he was getting what Tazuna was trying to say.

Haku's mind wandered back to when he'd met Naruto for the second time. The fugitive had been gathering herbs in the forest that morning with his long hair down and wearing a sun dress, a girl by every outward appearance, when he'd spotted the blond boy who was, inexplicably, fast asleep in the grass.

_'You'll catch cold if you sleep here,' _cautioned Haku when he'd knelt down and nudged him, _'wake up.'_

Naruto had enlightened the 'girl' that he'd been up late training, then quickly and without any reservations whatsoever shared with Haku his dreams of getting stronger and of becoming Hokage one day. And he was warm, expressive and gregarious, not guarded and belligerent like every other ninja Haku had ever met. For some reason, Haku remembered being a bit irritated at this and that he'd even challenged the leaf-ninja's apparent good-nature at the conclusion of their conversation by revealing that he was actually a boy – a fact many would have found repugnant, but not Naruto.

Only now did Haku understand – it hadn't been anger, but envy. Why was it ok for Naruto to be nothing like what a shinobi was 'supposed' to be? Why should HE get to be a ninja on his own terms, emotional, wildly idiosyncratic, hyperactive, knuckle-headed and everything else, while Haku always had to conceal his true, gentle nature? It wasn't fair!

But it didn't make any sense to be mad at Naruto for pursuing the life Haku wished for himself. Instead, the ninja felt drawn to him as the kind of friend he'd never had before – a kindred spirit. Even with his life in turmoil these last few months, following the death of his master, memories of the strange leaf-ninja had never gone far from Haku's thoughts and had, in a way, guided him.

Of course if Haku had wanted to be his friend, the ninja considered, trying (by appearances, anyway) to KILL him and then having a big, sloppy, existential crisis all over him probably wasn't the best way.

_'I have my own dreams as you have yours,' _Haku remembered saying to Naruto and Sasuke during the first battle of the bridge when he, once again, had been compelled to fight. _'Please try not to resent me, but I'm willing to do whatever it takes to protect the one I care about most...to fight, kill, or die to fulfill that person's dreams. Doing so is my own dream. To that end, I will become a true shinobi and I shall kill you both.'_

_Eesh! Did I really say THAT?!_ Haku hissed, aghast in embarrassment, then anxiously wrung his hands._ That…that was a difficult time for me, but still --._  
_'Often people have it wrong,'_ Haku's memory again carried him back…back to just after his defeat at Naruto's hands, _'mistakenly believing that showing mercy to an enemy is kindness. They spare the foe whose life is in their hands. But don't you see? It's an empty existence to go on living...alone and unloved...when defeat's already cost you your dream!_'

The teenager scratched his cheek woefully then stared again at the blank paper, seeing in the purity of its white depths the cold stares and accusing fingers of the prosecutors in Naruto's mind. They would be more than right to question and find fault.

_There's no way,_ Haku began to realize and shook his head gravely. _There's no way he'd ever accept ME as a friend…not after all that._

The basement's dim, dank atmosphere seemed to close around him.

_This was a bad idea,_ Haku concluded, dismayed and deflated, then quickly set his brush aside and put the cap back on top of the inkwell.

Just then, the door to the basement creaked open and Mr. Tezuka paced down the stairs, interrupting the fugitive's forlorn thoughts with a stream of muttered profanity, his shirt partially soaked by a splash of grimy water. "Oh!" he started slightly when he reached the bottom. "I didn't expect you here, Hiroo, or I woulda knocked or something. Weren't you going to go back to work today?"

A morose Haku shook his head, still absorbed by the empty square of paper in front of him and the abandoned prospect it represented. "I was, but I got a new job. I don't start until tomorrow."

The wiry, coal-haired man raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah?" he inquired interestedly. "What kind of job."

At this moment, the ninja's mind was far from any state where he could manage deceit, and besides…

"I'm going to be one of the Lady Magistrate's constables," he answered matter-of-factly.

"Hmm," began Mr. Tezuka in a thoughtful tone. "What does that pay?"

Haku's eyes rose blankly at the unexpected question as he turned to look at Mari's father. "I don't know," the teenager replied, knowing how stupid it sounded. "I didn't think to ask."

"You di--," the man began, looking back at him in disbelief and breaking out in rumbling laughter. "You didn't think to ask?" he repeated merrily, then offered: "Well, I hope you like working for free!"

Haku's brow furrowed seriously. "I don't think Lady Hirai would take advantage that way."

"Oh no?" Masuo Tezuka chuckled. "I guess you've got a lot more faith in human nature than I do, kiddo."

The man wandered into the thick of Maceo's studio. The smile quickly faded from his face as he was confronted by all the outré sculpture, stacks of paintings, supplies and piles of junk.

Mr. Tezuka shook his head as he started to pick through it all. "Damn that brother of mine," he grumbled. "I'm amazed he hasn't burned my f-cking house down with all this sh-t he's got stockpiled here." The man spent a few more minutes in fruitless search, cursing all the while, before he straightened and let his hands fall to his sides. Turning his head slightly back toward his young tenant, he ventured, "I don't suppose YOU'VE seen a pipe-cutter around here?"

Haku reported in a somber tone: "By your left foot, second shelf up from the bottom behind the paint cans."

The father looked at him with a skeptical scowl then crouched down, showing a hemi-circle of pale, bare back and butt-crack, rummaged around then uttered a victorious cry when he finally found what he sought. Rising then with the tool in hand as if it were a golden chalice, the man grinned at Haku and raised his chin.

Haku recognized this gesture as particular to the Tezuka clan – a short, sharp, upward inclination. It was a nuanced expression that meant, 'you're good for something after all, despite massive evidence to the contrary.' The ninja managed a half-hearted grin in reply and nodded distractedly.

Having fulfilled his quest, the Tezuka patriarch made his way to the stairs and tromped his way up.

"Mr. Tezuka?" Haku began, catching him mid-way.

"Yup?"

"How long have you known?"

The man backed down two steps then leaned against the wall. "Since just after that first night we all had dinner together."

Haku's eyes rose. "That long?" his voice issued quietly. Mari was so sure that her parents were fooled. _I wonder,_ the ninja thought,_ if anyone on this earth is as clever as they think they are._ "Thank you for not turning me over to the ANBU."

Tezuka shrugged. "F-ck the ANBU," he said. "It's not like they've ever done anything for me."

"What gave me away?"

"Little things mostly," said the father. "Of course I came down here to take a look at who my idiot daughter brought home all those weeks ago. Oh! Look at this – a pretty little naked boy with a bloody chest wound. I had to give her some points for originality there." Haku hung his head and rubbed his temple, mortified by the man's description of him. "But yeah, no clothes," Mr. Tezuka continued, "Mari told me she threw them away because they were all ripped up and covered with blood. 'Ok', I thought, ''seems possible if you got robbed, but your shoes too? I mean: your shoes?

"Then at dinner, well, let's face it, you look…different than most kids your age. You're sitting there with that long hair, straight, perfect teeth, and skin my dear bride would kill a dozen people to get, and I'm thinking – this kid's supposed to be living on the streets? It was clear to me that someone had taken pretty good care of you. Of course, I always thought it was weird how fast you healed. And Maceo didn't have a word to say so I KNEW something was going on. Anyway, I sweated the whole story from him, long story short."

Haku nodded. "Still, I would have thought…with me being a dangerous criminal and all…"

"Yeah, well, you definitely got a lot of people saying a lot of things about you, Haku," the man allowed, then sniffed. "I never believed a word."

Haku shot him an incredulous look.

"Oh, I know about all that crap with you and Zabuza. You guys tried to take down the Mizukage and killed a whole bunch of his ninja in the process."

Haku nodded at the man's terse summary.

"Ok, whose idea was that, yours?" Mr. Tezuka asked rhetorically, then shook his head. "Not a chance; that was Momochi's deal. He might have been like a dad to you, Haku, but you know, I don't think much of anyone who'd drag a kid into something like that.

"Anyway, people like to talk a lot, mostly about stuff they know nothing about. Me," the man explained, cocking a thumb into his chest, "I'm a grown man. I'll make up my own mind."

The ninja blew out a breath then risked a wan smile. "And what have you decided then…about me?"

"'Jury's still out," replied Tezuka with a disarming leer. Haku felt a weird shiver for a moment as he thought the man said 'Juri' with an 'i' rather than 'jury' with a 'y'. "But," Mari's dad offered, "I like ya' just fine, so far. And, and don't EVER tell her this, I kind of trust Mari." He cast an upward look, then added confidingly, "not her judgment, of course, she's nutty as hell, but she's got pretty good intuition about people."

The man puffed thoughtfully. "As far as you being a criminal or whatever, I guess that part doesn't bother me so much. All my kids are borderline criminals, same way I was. Maybe that's 'cause things have been tough around here or maybe it's 'cause it's in their blood, I don't know. I love 'em all more than anything but that hasn't made me blind."

Haku smiled reassuringly. "Having spent much of my life around criminals, I can say with certainty that you and your family are _nothing_ like them."

"Thanks," said Mr. Tezuka as he began to climb the rest of stairway. Before he reached the top he paused briefly and gestured with his pipe-cutter. "I hope the new job goes good. I'm actually kind of glad we'll know someone on the inside."

Feeling better now, Haku returned to his letter. _Just say what you have to say,_ he advised himself though he still didn't know how to start. Making motions as if he did, he uncapped the inkwell and dipped the fine-pointed brush, thinking that once he'd done that then the words would come.

The glistening, black tip hovered over the field of intimidating white, but the ninja still sat frozen.

Drip.

Haku winced. Now there was a single black dot. That's all it would ever be unless he continued. Rolling his eyes and recommitting himself again to this endeavor, however badly or uselessly it turned out, the ninja brushed the characters:

**Dear Naruto:**

**I am alive, my friend, though I know it must be difficult to believe…**

The former fugitive thought that a promising enough way to begin.

* * *

_Hi, everyone. I hope you liked that. As many of you noticed, the story is wrapping up. If this was a good ole' non-digital format, hard-copy, ink-on-paper PRINT book, you'd see that there are about 20 pages left…unless, of course, I can come up with another excuse for another long and harrowing fight sequence, hehehe! And you NEVER KNOW (grins)._

_I'd like to state that what Haku remembered he'd said in flashback, I took directly from Naruto the anime/manga. I thought the change in tone and style was enough to set it apart without my having to footnote or anything like that. Plus, you probably remembered those lines anyway._

_Please review! I never know how I'm doing without feedback. And I hope you come back next time for the *Final* chapter of…The Broken Tool._

_Thanks,_

_--Jono'_


	22. Chapter 22

**Haku**

* * *

Zabuza Momochi's former student warmed himself in the sun, resting his back against the angled face of the white concrete obelisk – a lonely naval marker that stood high on a rocky, scrub-covered promontory overlooking the sea. The rhythmic sound of the cerulean surf punctuated by seabirds' plaintive cries, the scents, and the motion of the breeze over his face and through his clothes all moved him towards a much-needed state of blissful relaxation.

The seemingly simple act of writing Naruto had been much more taxing emotionally than he'd expected. Having finally finished that letter to him after a couple of long, tortuous hours, the ninja had then walked it into town and given it to Tazuna. The bridge-builder had acquaintances with business in Fire Country, and could be reliably called-upon to deliver it to the Hidden Leaf Village.

_It's done – that's the important part,_ considered Haku with a sense of _almost_ untroubled detachment. _Best to put it behind me, whatever happens, happens. Even if I never hear from him again, I tried. I've done my part. What more can I do?_

The slender teen canted his head lazily then as he heard footsteps crunch toward him from the direction of the trail in a poor imitation of stealth. Haku recognized them at once as Chuuya and Inari's; the two were up to standard-issue mischief as was entirely predictable.

The two boys split up, crept around either side of the obelisk, then jumped out to surprise Haku but found no one there. Chuuya, his wrists still in casts, and dressed in a billowing, faded, canary-yellow t-shirt that had once housed one of his older brothers, and Inari, in his striped white hat, long-sleeved white turtleneck, and teal overalls (did this kid ever wear anything else?!) looked at each other quizzically, started to search, then startled as Haku materialized behind them and flicked both boys on the earlobes.

"OW!" they squealed, wheeling around.

"Sensei!" yelped Chuuya, "that's not fair!"

"Real ninja," the Demon's Apprentice reminded them pointedly, "know how to move quietly." Haku's grey eyes lifted expressively in thought as he considered then admitted: "Although maybe that idea's been lost, what with all the explosions and all."

Chuuya rubbed his ear, forced a toothy, asymmetrical grin then gave his confederate, Inari, an encouraging look.

The engineer's grandson worked himself up for a moment then dropped with great ceremony to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground. "Master Haku," he begged, "please, teach ME how to be a ninja too!"

Haku raised an eyebrow and cast Chuuya a questioning glance, but the boy only shrugged.

Inari sat up. "Please, you've got to!" he pleaded, his dark eyes shimmering with zeal. "My mom was almost kidnapped by bandits; my dad was killed and he wasn't the only one. Someone's always pushing us around and there's never anyone around to protect us. And you know these…these mist-ninja don't care about us, and they won't be around forever. Sooner or later, we'll have to learn to fight for ourselves, we'll --!"

Haku held up his hand, cutting the boy off from a declaration the ninja felt sure would last all afternoon. "I didn't ask," said the long-haired teenager in a non-committal tone. "But before I give you my answer, I'd like to remind you, Inari, that you have already changed the course of the Land of Waves without knowing even a single technique." He turned then toward his original student. "And you, Chuuya, have certainly made your presence felt in the very literal sense knowing only one."

Both boys smiled cautiously at the young shinobi's praise.

"You have nothing more to prove to me, Inari. I can see what's in your heart," said Haku who at once remembered what the boy's grandfather, Tazuna, had imparted to him about ninja. The bridge-builder's reflections, the timing of which had seemed somewhat odd at the time, made perfect sense to Haku now. The man had been giving him _permission_. "It's also quite plain that you're bound and determined to live a dangerous life no matter what anyone might say or do," the ninja illustrated, his mild, low and lilting voice rising in pretended annoyance, "so I _suppose_ the least I can do is show you enough so you can live to see your tenth birthday."

Inari's young face blossomed with victory as he thrust both fists high into the air. "Yes!" he piped gustily while Chuuya cheered.

Haku smiled thoughtfully while the two celebrated, then took up a stone and scratched something into the naval marker's weathered, concrete flank. The two boys gradually fell silent as they watched their sensei finish it -- a mural of sorts, an abstracted version of Hokusai's painting 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa', compassed by a circular border, together with an epigram:

**The Future**

**Will Be**

**Your Epitaph.**

"What's that?" asked Chuuya, eyes wide with curiosity.

"An epitaph is an inscription left on a gravestone or monument," Haku explained, then nodded toward the drawing. "The way it's meant here refers to what you leave behind when you leave this world – the effect you had upon it, the difference you made in the lives of others.

"Gato, for example," he continued, "may have been very rich and powerful but served only himself and so everything he was died with him. As people move on in their lives, he is already all but forgotten." The dark-haired shinobi took a breath of the sea air and lifted his eyes skyward. So many important things were difficult to express. "My master, Zabuza, who saved me from a slow death of starvation and exposure, then gave me the great gifts of his time and knowledge, though he lives on in the love I will always hold for him in my heart, he lives on too in the fear he instilled in the Mizukage's."

Haku paused as the coastal breeze kicked up, hissing loudly through branches and making Inari reach up to clamp his hat to his head. The ninja wasn't sure how much more he could say before he reached the limits of the two boy's patience, but then, if he didn't test those limits then how would he ever know?

"If, as good students," The Demon's Apprentice continued once the wind had subsided, "you're wondering what this is all about, you needn't guess. These last few weeks have lead me to do a lot of thinking, about life and the path I wish to follow. I don't know the way just yet, but I think I'm closer to finding it."

"Just as long as it's not ZABUZA'S path!" stated Inari adamantly as he made a face and crossed his arms.

Haku smiled and spared him a tolerant, amiable glance, not quite used yet to the boy's brassy personality. "No, not Zabuza's," the ninja agreed. "He followed the path Kirigakure set for him, followed it to its end and then tried to go beyond it. That's where the two parted ways. But The Village Hidden in the Mist had it all wrong. There, there was only one 'way'; only one path to success and acceptance, and that was to be a cold-hearted killer, and Zabuza was better than anyone…even the Mizukage. That was why my sensei felt that he should be in charge instead; by their own rules, he was right." The teenager sucked in his lips then shook his head. "But no village can last long guided by a philosophy that encourages murder, betrayal and 'win at all cost'. It's inherently selfish. Living as part of any community demands common sacrifice and requires a degree of humility. I'm starting to think that even the Mizukage understands that now, or parts of it, but it took my master's massacre of an entire class of genin, and then later his sword striking toward the ninja lord's neck to force that realization.

"The man who told me that," Haku said and pointed to the inscription, "understood too." The ninja straightened then paused a moment to listen to the surf crash down below and felt its pulse vibrate through the rock and up through the soles of his boots. "The Village Hidden in the Leaves, on the other hand, has it right, or so I believe from what I've seen. There are many paths there it seems, and a broad, inclusive philosophy that has created a place where differences between people, if not celebrated, are at least tolerated. Its members, however unusual they appear, are free to develop their strengths, overcome their weaknesses, and participate as equals in achieving a common good. It's quite brilliant, I think."

Haku gazed at what he'd scrawled and fell silent, sure that the two boys were asleep on their feet or perhaps rolling their eyes.

But then: "They look out for each other too," added Inari in a thoughtful tone that surprised Haku and made him remember once again just how deep an impression those four, visiting leaf-ninja: Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi, and especially Naruto, had made on the boy. "And push each other to get better."

"Sensei?" ventured Chuuya, worriedly. "You once said if anything happened to you that I should go there, the Hidden Leaf Village, if I still wanted to be a ninja. YOU'RE not going to go there, are you?"

Haku gave him a lopsided smile and shook his head. "No, Chuuya," was his reply, "this is our home. I think we need to stay and do what we can to make it a good one."

All three nodded in agreement, and it occurred to the ninja that maybe this was no idle conversation. "I didn't mean to go overboard in my praise of Konohagakure no Sato," he hastened to clarify, "but only illustrate that we can learn much from their successes as we can from Kirigakure's failures." The young man's eyes narrowed as he grinned; fanciful notions dancing in his head. "But I wonder too if this is how big things start – just like this, just a few people and an idea."

Chuuya gulped. "Haku-sensei…do you think," he stammered nervously, "I mean, that maybe we could start our OWN Hidden Village?!"

Haku didn't let on that the youngest Tezuka brother was way ahead of him. "Who can say?" the ninja answered in a distant tone.

"Yeah!" Inari brayed at almost the same time with whole-hearted enthusiasm. "That'd be awesome! What're we gonna call it?"

From there the two boys huddled, drawn together by the notion's magnetic quality and went back and forth with rapid-fire ideas.

"Hidden ISLAND Village?"

"No! Village Hidden in the Sea?"

"Village Hidden on the Shores?"

"Uh-uh! Um, how 'bout 'Village Hidden in the Waves'?"

"Nah, that's too much like 'The Land of Waves'. Let's see: tides, currents, fish. Hey! We got beaches; how about 'The Hidden SAND Village'?"

Haku, having let them go on this long, cast a look in their direction and interjected: "I'm pretty sure that one's taken."

"AWWWWWWW!"

"How about," the ninja offered, his voice rising hopefully, "'The Village Hidden in the Surf'?"

Chuuya and Inari's heads swiveled toward him; their pairs of young, dark eyes stared critically.

"Nah, that's…that's stupid, sensei," offered Chuuya hesitantly, not wanting to put it quite so bluntly, even though he just had.

"Uh, yeah," Inari quickly piled on, the black-haired boy's expression pickling, "I mean, where'd you get THAT from?"

"The 'Hidden SURF Village', sensei?" continued Chuuya who shook his large, round head. "Then we'd be 'surf-ninjas'!"

Haku shrugged it off. "Well, no matter," he conceded gently and hid his disappointment, "there's plenty of time to come up with a more satisfactory name; and years and years of 'hard work and accomplishment' to be done before we should even consider such things."

His two students' expressions flickered, but they then nodded vigorously in agreement.

Haku grinned then turned toward the horizon where the sky met the sea.

It's been said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Clearly, all three were eager to take it.

* * *

The sun was just starting to set, lighting up the horizon's edge in a river of molten gold. As Haku ambled along the edge of the quiet construction site, the workers having been let off early, the ninja felt an amazing sense of anticipation that made him rush even though there was no real hurry. He wound down an alleyway, then a side-street, before he emerged onto the bustling thoroughfares that lead to The Great Naruto Bridge.

A lot of the shops were still open, and the edges of the streets were packed with vendors and carts that served snacks and treats of every type imaginable, filling the festive air with sweet, sticky scents.

At the intersection up ahead, the crowds had thickened in a ring around of trio of mist-ninja genin constables who were roughing up a pair of pickpockets, bouncing them back and forth between them. The crowd cheered as the squad's leader gave each of the petty crooks a final, hard kick in the hinds then cursed as the men yelped and retreated though the hostile crowd's bitter gauntlet of slaps and insults.

'_The Village Hidden in the Surf',_ Haku mused meanwhile and he couldn't help but laugh and think of poor Bunka, _is that REALLY such a bad name?_

The more he thought about it, the more the ninja liked the idea. What do surfers do – they harness the power of nature, become one with it. They accept the world's ebb and flow and make the best of what they have to work with. As a guiding image, Haku was quite taken with it.

But there he was, getting ahead of himself again.

_Oh!_ Haku stopped as the thought struck him out of the blue. _I really should try to find a third for Chuuya and Inari's team._

It seemed like all proper teams had three members, and that third should probably be a girl. The former fugitive really didn't know why teams were set up that way, but assumed it was some sort of male/female dichotomy-of-nature thing, a balance of yin and yang elements…something; or maybe it was just tradition.

That he didn't know the answer for sure rankled Haku a little because it felt like he should. Being a sensei was definitely going to be more troublesome than he'd thought.

_And where am I going to find a girl, especially one that can stand the training AND get along with Chuuya and Inari?_ Haku's eyes widened at how remote the possibility seemed, but it was even worse than that. _She'll have to be the cautious, thoughtful-type too,_ the ninja realized. _Both my students are reckless to an almost…no, there's no 'almost' about it, to a RIDICULOUS degree. They'll need someone much more stable to rein them in…at least a little and hopefully a lot._

_Ah, well,_ the teenager concluded, determined to put the matter on the back-burner for now.

Up ahead, the ribbon-festooned portals of The Great Naruto Bridge struck up over the construction fences and the uneven parapets of buildings still under-way. Much of the underlying structural systems were in place – portions of steel frames, walls of brick and pre-cast concrete. They were all still quite rough, but starting to give the idea of the bright, tree-lined cityscape to come.

Surrendering to a burgeoning sense of exhilaration and slipping like an eel through the throngs, an especially selfish use of his ninja skills, Haku increased his pace as he made his way onto the bridge, looked around, looked some more, then suddenly stopped.

There she was, just ahead, right up against the rope and sawhorse barrier, waiting for the rededication celebrations to begin. Though the bridge was packed with people, most of whom had black hair like that, Haku easily picked Mari's from the crowd. A pang of warm, welcome tension, gripped him inside and a smile dawned over his face. In only a few moments he would again hear her voice, hear her laugh, and look into her eyes. Though she smiled often, the ones for him were his alone and Haku cherished the distinction.

Behind the ropes and sawhorses, a podium was all set up and ready for the various officials who were scheduled to speak. Haku's new boss, the Lady Magistrate, Orimi Hirai, would be on hand to show solidarity with the others. Various luminaries would be introduced – a woman named Keiya Okore and some businessman named Saito, or Sato, Haku couldn't recall exactly…Tazuna's was the only name he'd recognized from the posters. They would speak of things vague and lofty, the ninja was sure, of Wave Country's transformation into a bright and prosperous land after so many years under Gato's cruelty and so on and so on.

Haku did not at all discount the power of words, but was keenly aware that words alone were only a beginning. They could only point the way. Actually getting to the destination would require action and tireless dedication.

Waiting off to the side, a troupe of lion-dancers limbered up; their vivid two-person lion masks and shawls laid out on the pavement and ready to go. Drummers paced close to their drums – squat, ponderous shapes, as big and black as cauldrons, while other members of the troupe set up poles by the dozens, each one holding several long strings of red and yellow firecrackers. It promised to be quite a show.

Haku eased through the crowd slyly, effortlessly as water through sand, drawing no one's attention, as wonderfully ordinary and anonymous as anyone else here. He moved close to Mari then finally let his hand come to rest upon her shoulder. Waiting this long was almost more than he could stand.

The girl turned toward him, recognizing his touch. Haku melted inside, for that smile again blossomed over her freckled face as they shared an embrace. Feeling her so close to him, the reassurance of her arms around him, her cheek warm against his, the scent of her hair, the indescribable feeling that permeated his spirit, rendered irrelevant the teenager's troubled past and turned the uncertain future into a happy daydream – a mysterious country they would together explore.

With everything that had happened to Haku since the first battle at the bridge, in exchange for this moment alone he could honestly say it was a trade worth making.

* * *

Haku woke up early the next morning, well before dawn, went upstairs to the kitchen and had a light breakfast before the Tezukas were up. After returning to his basement lodging, the ninja took his time to dress. Although the teenager thought he should be used to change by now, he couldn't help but be a little nervous…after all, it was his first day at a new job.

After awhile he heard feet stamp, voices chime, chairs scrape across the floor and dishes clatter, all signaling Haku that it was time to go. The ninja rose, stretched his fingers and neck, paced his way slowly up the dim stairs and through the doorway – a bold rectangle of bright light, then stepped back into the kitchen.

One by one, the Tezuka children gradually fell stone silent, eyes wide, mouths open, chopsticks frozen in mid-motion as their minds struggled to encompass the sight of their usually reserved and slightly effeminate houseguest dressed in a grey, high-collared, armored jacked worn over sea-blue fatigues and grey, toeless boots, while his long, black hair was held back by a sapphire-colored hitai-ate with the sigil of the Hidden Mist Village on it – the uniform of Lady Hirai's ninja constables.

"Good morning," Haku offered blandly, then asked: "So…what do you think?"

Jimon winced with derision while Mr. Tezuka gave Haku a casual looking-over and shrugged before deferring to his wife who wiped her sister's still-visiting babies, Fumio and Fushashi's, mouths, then offered with motherly succinctness: "You look very handsome, Hiroo."

Mari, being quick on the uptake, regained her poise, set down her chopsticks, rose from the table and went to him. "You really do, you know," she affirmed with a marvelous grin then whispered with intimate mischievousness into his ear, "See, I told you you look better in boy's clothes."

"Thanks," replied Haku with a smile. "I think I'm starting to agree."

The girl brushed an imaginary wrinkle from his uniform then draped her arms around his neck. "Knock 'em dead," she offered in a tone that was sultry and demure, dangerous and supportive all at the same time.

The ninja, warmed by the radiant power of her affection, gave Mari a grin. "I intend to," he affirmed, kissed her lightly then headed out, leaving the girl to suffer her parents' pointed looks, and her brothers' raucous jeers and smoochy-smoochy noises. Haku knew he'd pay for that in one way or another, but it was worth it.

As Haku shut the door behind him, the ninja understood the plan. He would walk the path one hyperactive, knuckle-headed, yellow-haired and vividly-orange-dressed leaf-ninja named Naruto Uzumaki had shown him. Only it wasn't JUST Naruto, it was Zabuza, Chuuya, Mari and so many others he'd encountered over the previous weeks…even Toru, the man who'd hunted him, even Lord Hirai, the man who'd tempted him with treasures, and even Juri, the woman who'd tried to kill him.

Haku knew now that he would live, as best he could, on his own terms. He would be the sort of ninja he thought he should be. He would be a happy public servant, doing good deeds, beating up bad guys, and if he came across a kitten in a bad spot, he wouldn't be too proud to rescue it.

Walking down Wave Country's streets, headed towards the Lady Magistrate's offices, Haku looked up toward the sunrise and, for the first time in years, felt at home.

**The End**

* * *

Whew!

Well, that's it, I certainly hoped you enjoyed. I can hardly believe this story took me over a year! **Thank you, thank you, thank you** to everyone who read, reviewed, faved, and C2ed. It's the interactive stuff that really made this story a lot of fun to write.

PLEASE REVIEW!! All comments are appreciated.

Thanks again!!

--Jonohex


	23. Chapter 23

Hi, everyone!

I just wanted to let you know, in case you're still interested, that I'm continuing The Broken Tool in a sequel called Kirigakure's Shore. Chapter 1 is up and readable at last after a few weeks of painful editing.

Thanks,

--Jonohex

PS: if you already know that, sorry for the false alert! (grins sheepishly)


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